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General

Felicity4711 and smartquotes

Felicity4711 has been asked to refrain from forcing "smartquotes" or directed quotes, but, as far as I can see, is unilaterally imposing them, as in Monochrome painting and other edits. I don't know enough about the technicalities, but I think someone who does ought to check this out. Tyrenius 23:23, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Ugh, to me this is borderline vandalism, unilaterally imposing a style that is widely disagreed with on dozens of articles without discussion. It makes the source impossible to read. - Merzbow 23:52, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I’m unsure whether it is my place to post my opinion here (as I am not an administrator); however, apart from the html v. unicode argument, what objection could anyone have to the use of ‘smart quotes’ over the use of " & '? It seems to me an entirely irrelevant issue (as long as the unicode, rather than the html versions are used). Personally, I am lukewarmly in favour of the use of ‘smart quotes’ - they are typographically correct, and somewhat more æsthetically pleasing - though I am not as zealously committed to the cause as Felicity4711 is. If she wants to go around, doing the mammoth menial task of swapping " for “ & ” and ' for ‘ & ’ in the many myriad articles of Wikipedia, then good luck to her - it’s not a negative thing to do (although, I could think of better things to do with my time). It would be inappropriately authoritarian for Wikipedia to impose the exclusive use of one form over the other (particularly the less correct " & ' over ‘, “, ’ & ”); slight differences of style are to be expected in an encyclopedia with so many editors. Please, tolerate some inconsequential diversity of style, and allow Felicity4711 her harmless pedantry. Doremítzwr 03:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Doremítzwr. I’ll be careful to use Unicode directed quotes from now on. Felicity4711 14:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Doremítzwr, especially this part: as long as the unicode, rather than the html versions are used. The “ and ” nonsense has got to stop, but other than that I see no problem. —Keenan Pepper 03:41, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Unicode it is, then, from now on. Felicity4711 14:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the unicode is fine, but the HTML stuff is rubbish. If she modifies any more articles in that way I'm going to exercise my right to harmless pedantry to make then readable again with the unicode. - Merzbow 06:21, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

As long as the end result is still directed quotes, you will in fact have my gratitude for changing them to a more-agreed-upon standard while maintaining their directedness. In the meantime, I am also going back through all my contributions and changing the HTML directed quotes to Unicode directed quotes. Felicity4711 14:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Changed to unicode smart quotes or keyboard apostrophes and primes (I presume that you mean the former; however your meaning is rather ambiguous)? If you do the latter, she’ll probably just go back and revert your changes; however, if you coöperate and change them to the former, it may encourage her to do so as well, and agree to only use unicode smart quotes in future. Shall I send her a message on behalf of you all, asking her to do so? Doremítzwr 14:48, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, Doremítzwr. I am going back through all my contributions and changing the HTML directed quotes to Unicode directed quotes. Felicity4711

Doremítzwr is only partially correct: typographer's quotation marks are correct in a printed document. Wikipedia is not a printed document. Typographer's quotes have absolutely no place in the content of Wikipedia articles which are not themselves about typography, and Wikipedia policy should be revised to make this fact explicit. -- BBlackmoor ^(talk) 01:26, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and should therefore strive for the same professionalism as a printed encyclopedia. If Wikipedia outlaws directed quotes completely, I might as well not even bother having an account. Felicity4711 14:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

That Wikipedia is an encyclopedia is irrelevant. Typography is a matter of the medium, not of the subject matter. Typographer's quotes are appropriate to printed matter, regardless of the subject. They are inappropriate to HTML or XHTML documents delivered over the web, again regardless of the subject. (As with anything else, there are exceptions to both cases, but Wikipedia is not among them.) Every medium has its differences, and (as I would have hoped you would have learned by now) it is counterproductive to try and force the norms for one medium onto another. As for "not even bothering to have an account", that would be entirely your decision. I am the last person who would try to convince anyone to spend their time editing Wikipedia. -- BBlackmoor ^(talk) 04:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Her work is going to be changed, as has already happened with Monochrome painting. - Tyrenius 15:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I’ll take that as a yes. Doremítzwr 18:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

For reference, I have posted this screenshot showing how the quotes added by Felicity4711 to the article Calvin Trillin appear on the latest version of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh when the user is logged in in Japanese. The quotes are double width because IE renders them in a two-byte Japanese font. I suspect that similar problems may occur in many Chinese, Korean, and other non-English computer systems. Tomgally 22:50, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I don’t mind if my work is changed from HTML directed quotes to Unicode directed quotes. If the quotes are made undirected, I will change them back to directed, but this time in Unicode. Felicity4711 14:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Does this happen with html smart quotes only or with unicode ones as well? Either way, it’s the final nail in the coffin for html ones. If this also happens with unicode smart quotes, then perhaps it is best that smart quotes in general are discouraged; I personally find an extra space where it shouldn’t be more obtrusive than primes used in place of quotation marks. However, if unicode smart quotes do not cause this phenomenon, then I reïterate that it should be a matter of personal choice. I don’t see the validity of Bblackmoor’s distinction betwixt a printed document and Wikipedia - both are read, and users (including me) often print articles. I think it best that Wikipedia does not legislate on this matter; it is not important enough, and to do so is simply creating another point of conflict. Doremítzwr 20:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Well said. Felicity4711 14:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why they wouldn't render identically: it's like "&" vs "&". —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-07-04 07:30Z

"I don't see the validity of Bblackmoor's distinction betwixt a printed document and Wikipedia..." Search Google for the phrase, "the web is not a magazine". -- BBlackmoor ^(talk) 06:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I still don’t see your point. The only relevant stuff those twenty-eight websites mentioned were encoding problems, which we all agree are important. However, nothing I read convinced me that the web ought not to use directed quotation marks and apostrophes due to them being directed. Furthermore, the fact that twenty-eight websites all make the same point doesn’t sway me in the slightest; a thousand people all arguing the same bad point doesn’t make that point any more convincing than had it been advanced by but one person — that’s democracy, and I’m not a democrat. Doremítzwr 11:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see what this discussion has to do with administrators. The discussion should be at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, though please bear in mind it has been discussed many times before. (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (quotes and quote marks), Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 18, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 40). Angela. 12:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Holywarrior block

I've blocked Holywarrior (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for 48 hours per the below (see relevant above thread):

"Third rate-liar" is a personal attack and any editor (admin or not) would be in the right to place an NPA warning on the talk page of the issuant. User:Holywarrior's user page is also inappropriate in my opinion by listing diffs with spurious added commentary by him (e.g. "CVU deletion trial" as opposed to an MfD that failed) and ("Admin who tried to bully me"). The entire commentary above is suggestive of trolling.

I submit the block here for review -- Samir धर्म 20:57, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Despite the fact, that I don't consider User:Holywarrior to easy to deal with (and a change of username may be an option), the thread above has a prehistory, as User:VandalPatrol (now indef blocked) and socks were busy making threats against User:Holywarrior and try to give the impression of acting as delegates of the CVU. See userpage history of VandalPatrol of and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bhurabal. Anyway, 48h block may be OK for cooling down. --Pjacobi 21:32, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Just for clarification, I have no prehistory with User:Holywarrior (Please review my contributions). My only "Ganging up" activity was issuing a WP:NPA against this user, for reasons cited above (i.e. calling another user a "3rd rate liar"). Following that, I looked in the other comments in the talk page, and voted here in a CFD for renaming, which Holywarrior opposed (My comment there was : Rename: as per Mareino hardly even a comment). Holywarrior turned his actions against me (see his last 15 edits or so) and claimed I pretended not to know anything and was bullying him [1][2]. Well, as I said, my only knowledge of this affair is ANB, and I don't really care to delve into the past or present disagreements this user has with others. That seems to be what Holywarrior has against me, and for this, I had the honor of making an entry in his attack page.

Well, I hope he cools down, and gets back to editing. His recent edits in the last week show only reverts or attacks in different pages, and a very dubious nomination of WP:CVU for deletion. I hope a 48 hour break will change such behavior. Thanks. --Ragib 21:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Holywarrior as a vandal, nominated by Debonshire, itself need a review.Possibility of story being the reverse is not ruled out.Wmnnzzr 13:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I have had no interaction with Holywarrior prior to this incident. I first encountered him when I saw his nomination for the deletion of the CVU page, claiming that it had spawed User:VandalPatrol, who I knew nothing of. I then looked at his talk page and saw that he had refered to every warning placed there by VandalPatrol as vandalism, so naturally, I assumed that he had been comitting vandalism and was angry about it having been interfered with and therefore decided to nominate the CVU page for deletion as a means of retaliation. Then after the matter, I did some investigation and found that he had a right to be angry with VandalPatrol, as that user has had a history of trolling and harrassing him and is currently blocked indefinitely, though he is now using sockpuppets. While I disagree with some of his actions, I can better understand them now. I have personally sent Holywarrior an e-mail apologising to him for having misjudged him and letting him know that I have made an effort to have VandalPatrol's harrassement put to an end. Hopefully he will decide to come back.--Conrad Devonshire ^Talk 21:03, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it looks like he has.--Conrad Devonshire ^Talk 16:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Holy fancruft, Batman!

Deadhead documents the term "deadhead", meaning a fan of the Grateful dead. Most of what is in this article is uncited, and some editors are arguing that Usenet is a reliable source since no other source exists. I think this article needs to be around 1/3 the current length. Maybe some others with more experience of rock culture could have a look? Just zis Guy you know? 11:38, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

usenet isn't a reliable source if no other sources exist. Its a neologism, and if they can't find any primary or secondary sources using the word and have to rely on usenet, I believe that qualifies it for deletion. --Crossmr 21:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course the article needs to be properly sourced but deadhead is by no means a neologism--in fact it is very well known and has been used ubiquitously for decades to describe the fans of the Grateful Dead, who are (or were) really closer to a phenomenon, than any other fans I've heard tell of--thousands of people who essentially devoted their lives to following the band around and had an almost cultish entire culture centered on the band. In high schools in the U.S. for the last three decades, for example, cliques were often described as the preppies, the metalheads, the druggies etc. and deadheads (often for those who were hippieish but not even dedicated fans of the band. I'll see if I can drum up some reliable sources. --Fuhghettaboutit 22:35, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppet block of User:Professor33

I have indefintely blocked User:Professor33 as a sockpuppet of blocked user User:Giovanni33. I have also extended User:Giovanni33's block to 1 week for repeated 3RR and for using a sock. Rationale behind the sock:

1. Usernames.
2. Edit pattern. I blocked Giovanni @ 16:22, June 29, 2006 for violating 3rr [3]. At 16:25 Professor comes in and reverts to Giovanni's preferred version diff.
3. They edit similar articles in similar ways. Special:Contributions/Giovanni33 , Special:Contributions/Professor33

Professor has indicated that he is not a sock [4] and that he intends to mail admins about the issue [5]. I'm bringing it here for full disclosure and review.

Wikibofh_(talk) 17:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I've reviewed checkuser evidence in this matter and I do not believe that there is any sockpuppetry going on. The secondary evidence is also weak. I strongly urge an unblock and an apology. Kelly Martin (talk) 05:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Kelly, there is extremely strong linguistic evidence, combined with the fact the we know that Giovanni has a record of using puppets, and there is a long history of new users turning up, supporting Giovanni, reverting to his version, following him from one page to another, and using the same linguistic idiosyncrasies. I will e-mail you the linguistic evidence. Obviously, I do not want to make it available in public, as that will alert him to what he should avoid with future puppets. The admin who blocked was not aware of the linguistic evidence, at the time of blocking, though I have since e-mailed some of it (not all, as I was changing from one computer to another). Deskana and some other admins are also aware of it. I will also post a fuller statement here when I get time. I would urge that nobody consider unblocking without reviewing the evidence, which I am willing to e-mail to any administrator on request. When he first arrived at Wikipedia, he did not know about userchecks. Now that he does know (having been caught out after putting on a pretence of not knowing BelindaGong, while she was following him around, reverting aggressively to his version, taking advantage of our reluctance to report new users), he is unlikely to make that particular mistake again. By the way, Giovanni is claiming on his user page that I'm not a linguist, and don't have any degrees in lingsuitics yet. I'm also willing to e-mail evidence of my bachelor's and master's degrees and several diplomas in language studies and linguistics. AnnH ♫ 08:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

AnnH is entirely correct that the linguistic evidence alone strongly indicates that these posts, as well as those of MikaM, Kecik, etc., propagate from one real-world user. Please do accept her offer of e-mailing the details. Combine this with the editing patterns, and the presumption of reasonable doubt is no longer tenable.Timothy Usher 08:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Giovanni also claims that he's never used sockpuppets before. To be frank I'm getting sick of cases like this. It's clear that at the very least Professor33 is a meatpuppet, due to certain things which I've observed which cannot be just random chance. I refer to the evidence that AnnH speaks of. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of YOUR OPINIONS} 08:29, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I endorse this block as well. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 09:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I also endorse this block. I stumbled across this incident via IRC and upon looking at both accounts contributions, it seems evident to me that both accounts are being controlled by the same person per the extremely similar writing styles and tone hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 10:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

While we're at it, can we also indef block puppets User:MikaM and User:Kecik, to whom all these lines of evidence equally apply? I have no problem with this user editting Wikipedia, so long as he sticks to one username.Timothy Usher 10:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not endorse this block. Kelly Martin has performed the checkuser and there is little solid evidence (read: something that you can prove) to that these two are related. Professor33 sent me a polite e-mail last night asking for help in this matter, and I agreed to look in to it. In addition to the checkuser showing negative results, the "linguistic evidence" that was used was sketchy at best. I am not convinced that these two are the same. I am going to look into this further, but I am heavily leaning towards unblocking this user. Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 13:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

In the interest of full disclosure, here is the e-mail that I sent to Professor33 in response to the e-mail he sent me. I will not post the e-mail he sent me unless he gives me permission to do so. Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 13:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Eugene,

First off, I would like to note that a "CheckUser" has been performed on both your account and 
Giovanni33's account. The results were not similar at all, so there is very little "solid" evidence
that you and Giovanni are one in the same. If you wish to provide further evidence of who you are, 
such as some type of identification, feel free to email me and I will forward it as necessary.

Secondly, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a devout Christian. That, however, does not 
affect how I edit articles. I intentionally avoid most Christianity-related articles, and therefore 
I can not say anything one way or the other in regards to any Christian-focused cliques, extreme or
otherwise.

Reviewing your edits, I must say that you could have made better usage of the talk pages. When I say 
"better usage", I am refering to the multiple reverts that have taken place. It appears that you 
have been involved in a few edit wars which could be viewed as disruptive. Although you are probably 
not connected to Giovanni, edit wars are bad. Try to seek a clear consensus before doing something 
that a number of people disagree with. If this fails, I suggest that you seek mediation. Also, don't 
be afraid to walk away from an article for a while. If you let things cool down a bit, you'll find 
that people are easier to deal with.

At this point, I will suggest that you are unblocked pending any concrete evidence of sockpuppetry. 
My suggestion is to tread lightly when you are unblocked, and do not be afraid to ask for advice 
and/or help if and when you find yourself in a dispute.

If you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to e-mail me.

Regards,
Alex Schenck
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Linuxbeak

Hello, Linuxbeak. First of all, I wonder what you mean by saying that "the [checkuser] results were not similar at all". Have you seen the checkuser results? I thought only people with usercheck privileges saw checkuser results, and Kelly didn't say that they "weren't similar at all". She said she did "not believe that there is any sockpuppetry going on". She didn't say that they were in completely different areas. I never expected Giovanni to be caught a second time with a checkuser — he knows about it now. He didn't know at the time when he either registered a second account as BelindaGong or got his wife to join in order to get an extra three or more (often more, as we didn't want to report newcomers) reverts per day, and to follow him around, support him on talk pages, and vote on issues he was voting on. Do the checkuser results show that it's so far away that it couldn't be his work address, or another place that he drives to in the morning? The receent pattern has been that the last edit as Giovanni33 each morning is around the time that he would be leaving the house for work (according to his time zone), and then Professor33 logs on about an hour or two later, logs off around the time that he'd be finishing work, if he's in Giovanni's time zone, and doesn't edit at weekends. Giovanni then logs on as Giovanni33 around the time that he'd be getting home from work, and then edits in the evening and the night. Also, if his story that Freethinker99 is a separate person is true, we know that he's capable of getting a friend to join in order to revert to his version (which is still a violation of WP:SOCK. When he accidentally signed while logged on as Freethinker, he claimed that he was over at his place, and was showing him how to use Wikipedia (i.e. showing Freethinker how to revert to Giovanni's version while Giovanni was blocked).

Secondly, what do you mean when you say, "The linguistic evidence that was used was sketchy at best"? The linguistic evidence has not been made public, and can't be, as it would alert Giovanni to idiosyncrasies that he should avoid in future, so how can you know that it's sketchy? I will e-mail you the evidence if you send me an e-mail requesting it — on condition, of course, that it is not made available to anyone other than an administrator. Please note that Giovanni has a history of puppetry, gross violations of 3RR (I mean REALLY gross violations, continuing defiantly after warnings — on one occasion making 11 reverts within 19 hours, despite warnings — not the kind of accidental fourth reverts that could happen to anyone), and gaming the system, taking advantage of our reluctance to report a newcomer; and that several new users have started reverting to his version and supporting him on talk pages straight after registering.

Please note, as well, that Giovanni publicly acknowledges his IP, and on any occasion when one of the suspected puppets made a not-logged-on edit and acknowledged it, it was always geographically close. Please see also Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Giovanni33 and Talk:Christianity/Archive_24. Also, when he was blocked after the BelindaGong puppetry was revealed (they had put up an active pretence of not knowing each other while she was reverting to his version and following him to different pages, voting for what he wanted), Freethinker99 (talk · contribs) arrived at the Christianity, talk page, said he was new but had read the talk page and agreed with Giovanni (first edit)[6] and then reverted back to Giovanni's version (second edit).[7] He was asked to review WP:SOCK, and said, "I have. Thanks."[8] Giovanni was asked on his talk page (the only page he could edit) to state frankly whether or not he had any connection with any of the new users who were reverting to his version, and he denied it — but forgot that he was logged on as Freethinker99![9] He then changed the signature[10] but we had already seen it.

Various explanations were given — he was married to Belinda, and had not wanted to make that public. He was a friend of Freethinker, and was at his house, showing him how to use Wikipedia. When he denied having any connection to any of the editors about whom he had been asked, he had not seen Freethinker's name, which had been added to the original question later, but had been on his talk page for fifty minutes when he answered, and was DIRECTLY above the first words of his denial while he was typing.

It is extremely disturbing that Kecik has 40 reverts to Giovanni33 out of a total of 45 article edits, that his seventh edit was a vote for something Giovanni wanted[11] at a page he'd be unlikely, as a new user, to find by chance (and he didn't have "e-mail this user" enable), and that he was here for nearly four months before he made his first edit to an article that Giovanni was not looking for support at (and then only after I had commented so many times on the pattern of his contributions) — and that nothing has been done about this. MikaM's contributions are similar — this vote is his/her sixth edit, and as with Kecik, e-mail was not enabled, and it's unlikely that a brand new user, who was supporting Giovanni at Christianity, would find that page just by chance.

And yes, I stand by the linguistic evidence linking Giovanni33 not just to Professor33 but also to eight other users. I strongly urge admins to e-mail me for the evidence before they consider unblocking. AnnH ♫ 14:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• I brought the block here so that it could be reviewed. Personally, I believe he's a sock, and don't have access to checkuser. Kelly and Linux are respected admins, and if someone decides to reverse the block I'm not going to be upset. However, even if User:Professor33 is unblocked, I do think that User:Giovanni33's block should stay, and have said so to him in reply to him via email. This was his 5th unique 3RR block by 5 different admins. [12] and perhaps a week will be a wakeup call. I considered a WP:RFCU, but the notices at the top gave me the indication that I should not do that given the evidence I had. If people are interested in the emails I have sent to both the Professor and Giovanni, I will happily post them, but they don't say anything I haven't said in public. Wikibofh_(talk) 14:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have seen the checkuser evidence, and it's certainly not inconsistent with the idea that they are sockpuppets. Moreover, I've seen the other evidence as well, and some of it is quite compelling. Please remember that checkuser is not a magic crystal ball; it can certainly be helpful in proving or disproving sockpuppetry, but ultimately decisions about sockpuppeting are made the old-fashioned way. As has been the case in the past with Giovanni33, there's either standard sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry going on here, and the evidence indicates to me that it's far more likely that it's plain old sockpuppetry. In my view the block is justified. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Comparing the edits, it's clear to me that Professor33 is Giovanni33. The writing style, word choices, and habitual errors are all consistent. His timely arrival to support Giovanni just when he 'runs out' of reverts is icing on the cake. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly totally satisfied that they are sockpuppets, or perhaps meatpuppets. You can't really accuse me of sharing a Christian POV either. Although I attend a Catholic college and was born and raised a Catholic, I am most certainly an atheist. The linguistic evidence is far too compelling for it to not be a sockpuppetry case. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of YOUR OPINIONS} 22:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I've seen the linguistic similiarities, which can't be made public, and it seems clear that the Giovanni and Professor accounts are connected. IP evidence is only ever a part of the total evidence, because people can use different IP addresses for different accounts, but the linguistic evidence would be hard to explain away. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I concur that User:Professor33 is a sockpuppet account of User:Giovanni33. This should be no surprise looking at the edits and the fact that Giovanni33 has used sockpuppet accounts in the past as in the case of User:BelindaGong, User:Freethinker99, User:HK30, User:Mercury2001 and User:MikaM. Those most familiar with editing patterns of articles are certainly able to be the best judge of similarity of edits in terms of word choices, POV and sudden appearances in the "nick of time" to avoid a three revert rule violation. Is there an Rfc on this matter yet? And if not, why not?--MONGO 17:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I endorse the block. It seems highly likely that User:Professor33 is a sockpuppet account, or at the very least a meatpuppet, of User:Giovanni33. I see no need for an Rfc if the block is upheld. If not, then an Rfc would be strongly indicated. Checkuser does not help with all socks - consider HollowW aka Eternal Equinox, who edits from a variety of IPs. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It's worth pointing out that Giovanni33 has evaded his block. He acknowledges in this section of his talk page that his IP is 64.121.40.153 (talk · contribs). That's a static IP. He acknowledged a recent post from that IP by logging on and replacing the signature as recently as 1 July.[13] On 3 July, while blocked for 3RR and sockpuppetry, he logged off as Giovanni33 (presumably the autoblock was cancelled at that stage), and made this post in defence of Alienus. In case anyone doubts that it's Giovanni, compare it with this, this, and this, where he comes to the defence of Alienus.

He was asked in this section if he had evaded his block. (Note that he had evaded it by using an IP on a project page.) He replied,

Since im blocked and I'm not supposed to edit any articles, I have not. Not even a single article even when I've run into several mistakes on a few of them. I've also not editing under any other usernames, have not edited any talk pages except my own, despite what you think. It that clear enough?

It's not the first time that Giovanni has evaded a 3RR/Sockpuppetry block. See the contributions of Freethinker99 (talk · contribs), especially this most significant one.

As I'm involved in a content dispute with Giovanni33, I'll leave if for other admins to decide how this should be dealt with. AnnH ♫ 03:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Since 64.121.40.153 (talk · contribs) is Gio's account, and since he used that IP to evade his block by making this edit 08:04, July 3, 2006, I have reset Giovanni33's 7-day block from that date, four days from today. -Will Beback 09:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

And I have blocked user:64.121.40.153 for the same period. -Will Beback 10:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

User:195.93.21.100

User has consistently engaged in personal attacks on me going so far as to vulgarly proclaim to having sex with my mother.

1. [14] 2. [15] 3. [16] 4. [17]

I took this to the Personal Attack Intervention Noticeboard [18] and the only action taken was a warning added to the users talk page. Shown here: [19]. You'll see that it is at least 20-30 times this user has been warned about vandalism and personal attacks.

I understand he's using AOL, but that in itself is NO excuse to allow him to continously vandalise articles and engage in vulgar personal attacks on me. I find it highly inappropriate that he's allowed to continue his vile rampage simply because he's using AOL. If any other user had said the things he's said about me (i.e. accusing me of being a pedophile, having sex with my mother) they would have been permanently banned from editing here.

I look forward to hearing/seeing a more appropriate response to his personal attacks than a simple warning on a talk page to go along with his MANY other warnings for the same thing. Batman2005 19:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Wikibofh blocked for the 15 minutes which is all we can give AOL IPs. Sorry, I know he's a pain, but that's the best we can do. I will re-semiprotect the John Wayne article if he continues adding his pet (unsourced, unverified, and hostile attack) section, but of course that won't prevent talk page spam. KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, well, obviously its wiki policy on the AOL thing, so I won't go into my personal feelings about that. It just feels as if he's getting a free pass. Batman2005 23:17, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I need help at Chinky

Before I revert for the third time, I would like to ask for somebody's help at Chinky and the associated AfD. I found a crappy article about a slur and took it to AfD. In mid-AfD another user replaced the contents wholesale with another article on an British slang term referring to Chinese takeouts. Now the AfD has been obviated, AfD participants are getting confused, and I am losing patience and yelling at people. He's been a little too BOLD for my taste. Would someone calm please come and restore order? Thank you. - CrazyRussian talk/email 19:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

My advice would be to close the AfD yourself, as a keep, since you're saying yourself that if the decision on the now-removed version was "delete", you'd replace it with the version User:Uncle G has written. It does, however, need to be made plain in the "Uncle G version" of the article that "Chinky" is widely regarded as a racial slur, even when only applied to takeaways. --ajn (talk) 19:51, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It is still a racial slur - and _if_ we need an article on UK chinese takeaways then it should be at Chinese takeaway. It feels like a dic def - and the article is poor and has pov issues. Secretlondon 13:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I will close the AfD. - CrazyRussian talk/email 19:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Batman2005

I took a look at this user's userpage, as he complained about personal attacks. I was suprised to therefore see a long list of celebrities being described as "racist whore, fuckin traitor, homosexual, murdering liar", and so on. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, don't own your userpage, etc. I removed the section, but he restored it. So, question - is the abuse of real people encyclopedic? Proto///type 06:20, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be reomved and protected if needed. Ian¹³/t 12:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, this isn't encyclopedic, but I think the user page guidelines need to be clarified. It says that longtime users are often given a great amount of latitude, but to what extent? Some users have had pages devoted strictly to showcasing images of nudity; some are okay with it and some aren't (but the user page guidelines don't really help to clarify whether it truly is okay). And it looks like the same type of situation exists here. The question of whether we should give Batman2005 this much latitude is not answered within the user page guidelines.

However, I would like to note several statements that implicitly attack certain types of people. From his people I wish would die in a fire, he mentions Zac Efron and Jesse McCartney simply because he's homosexual. He says that people who think Freddy Adu is sixteen are dumbasses. This kind of statement...

This fucking page likely contains unnecessarily vulgar or offensive statements. If it bothers you, then you should go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself.

...is just downright insulting. And this...

Now, cry babies, don't go crying to the admins (who will likely be included) this isn't a personal attack, i don't wish you dead (most of you) this is just my way of saying..."hey, no matter what you say to me on here, you're still dead to me, so i'm not going to pay any attention to your comments.

..., once again, just creates hostility. There's even an explicit death wish in there (for those who don't fit under most of you).

In addition, I'm quite fascinated by your question: So, question - is the abuse of real people encyclopedic? Wikipedians are real people too, aren't they? Okay, okay, I know what you're saying. But let's pretend Bill O'Reilly were to become a Wikipedian. Or perhaps Paris Bennett were to start editing Wikipedia. Then Batman's page would absolutely be making personal attacks against Wikipedians. So, the personal attacks against famous people in reality are equivalent to personal attacks against Wikipedians. We would not (I hope) allow something to say about an Wikipedia editor, no talent, ugly, annoying voice, cocky, ugly, etc, etc., or allow any editor to call someone else a fat ass windbag, so why should we allow people to do the same for celebrities who may or may not be Wikipedians? Batman's user page is far from encyclopedic and serves only to create an uncomfortable environment for people (albeit famous people). Portotype, in my opinion, you did the right thing. joturner 12:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The invitation to "hide and go play fuck yourself" near the top of the page is pretty clearly a PA toward real users, not potential ones. As such, the above question (while interesting in theory) is kind of a moot point. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:02, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Firstly i think its ridiculous that this was listed without me being told about it, how disrespectful! Secondly, this has been brought to this very page several times in the past and several times in the past it has been established that my user page violates NO set wikipedia policy! None whatsoever! There is not a single personal attack towards a wikipedia user on my entire page, if Paris Bennett were to become a wikipedian and object then I would remove the offending comment about her. As is though, there is no policy violation on my page, simply put...if it offends you, then discontinue looking at it. Batman2005 14:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

i actually see how inviting users to play "hide and go fuck yourself" could be construed as a personal attack towards wikipedia users, as such I shall remove that. Batman2005 14:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Note I have decided on my own to remove the offending part of the page, it still contains a list of people who I do not like...however it does not now implore them to die in a fire. As I added the information in the first place it was done to illustrate a point, that while wikipedians claim that wikipedia is not censored, it is in fact VERY censored. As such, the point has been proven to my satisfaction and I have declared myself the victor, bring me the finest wine in the land. Batman2005 14:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

As another note, I think the swearing should be removed (infact, from any userpage where it is used). Some find it offencive (it doesn't really bother me), and although the Wikipedia isn't censored - people don't expect to find that on a userpage. Ian¹³/t 16:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Note, I'm going to disagree there, requiring me to remove swearing is blatant censorship, let me point out that MUCH more offensive stuff is on wikipedia...(Note: disturbing image warning) [20] If this garbage is allowed to stay on wikipedia but a couple curse words aren't how is that not censorship? Batman2005 16:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

As I implied, a userpage is not where this would be expected. I think you need to understand that the content of the encyclopedia may not be censored - but that does not mean people can say or do what they like. Also, talk pages and userpages are not part of the encyclopedia. Please see Wikipedia:Profanity (Including information about offensive material is part of Wikipedia's encyclopedic mission; being offensive is not.) If you are looking for somewhere where nothing is censored - then you are in the wrong place. Your usages of such possibly offencive words does not improve the content of Wikipedia. Ian¹³/t 17:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem here isn't that its offensive, the problem is that it violates no set wikipedia policy. You highlighted an article that is a guideline, but not a policy. If certain users find my userpage offensive, as you do, then you are free to navigate away from it and spend your wikipedia time elsewhere. There is no policy about foul language on userpages, if you believe there should be one then there are ways to go about getting that policy enacted. But to require/request that I remove it is censorship at its finest, and that is specifically against wikipedia policy. I also grow very tired of people saying stuff like "I think you should understand <insert something here>" as if i'm too dense to read and understand wikipedia, or as if they're somehow more educated on the subject than I am. I have read all the pertinent policies, which is why i'm safe in my contention that I have violated no policy. Perhaps other users should become as familiar with said policies as I am. Batman2005 17:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy isn't intended to be interpretted word for word. Otherwise we would have loads of people reverting 3 times a day just because they feel they have the right too. Ian¹³/t 17:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• I have been MORE than reasonable during this discussion. I chose, on my own, to remove the offending part of the userpage, which was the reason it was brought here for discussion. I did so without needing to be convinced and did so against past consensus that my page was acceptable by all standards and violated no policy whatsoever. I will not remove the profanity as it violates no current policy on wikipedia. To contend that the policies herein shouldn't be interpreted word for word is both ludicrous and laughable. If we don't take policies word for word does that mean i'm free to interpret it however I see fit? Am i then free to levy personal attacks because i'm not interpreting that part as written? Policies are meant to be interpreted exactly how they are written, unwritten rules do not apply here nor do they carry any weight with me. If the editors en-masse want to get together and pass a policy specifically against profanity on userpages then I will follow that policy exactly as written. Until that time, I will not remove profane words from my userpage, nor should any user be expected to. If someone is offended, as I said earlier, they are free to navigate away from the page and abstain from visiting in the future. Batman2005 17:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• Right. Please see Wikipedia:Interpret all rules (yes, yes, it's not official policy - but we are a community here). Ian¹³/t 18:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Would you care to show me a policy i've violated? Or are you just going to continue to link to things that have nothing to do with my userpage and don't prove your position right? If you want to interpret the rules to say that my userpage is offensive fine, then don't visit it in the future...problem solved. I however will interpret wikipedia policy to mean "policy" and guideline to mean "guideline." Policies are things I will follow to the letter as that's the meaning of a policy. As such, you and everyone else, has failed to show me a wikipedia policy that my userpage violates, thus...it will remain. Please do not waste more of my time by linking to things that are irrelevant, if you are able to link to solid policy about my userpage than I will entertain that position, if not I have better things I could be doing, as I'm sure you do. Batman2005 18:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems you havn't considered anything I have said. Ian¹³/t 18:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL I notice several references to that on your talk page. Your user page is only a continuation of that behaviour and is uncivil. --Crossmr 18:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

While I have been warned about incivility in the past, you'll notice that in no way is a userpage covered in WP:CIVIL. You no doubt have read the policy as I have, and i'm sure you saw the first sentence where it clearly says Civility is a rule for the conduct of edits, comments, and talk page discussions on all Wikipedias. None of my edits that are deemed "inappropriate" occur on a talk page or edit summary. Are YOU able to provide a policy that my page violates? If not I would also ask that you not waste my time with things totally unrelated to userpages. Batman2005 18:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Quite the contrary, I have considered it and gave it some thought, however...you fail again to produce a policy discussing the use of profanity on userpages. Like I said, if it really offends you that much you're free to propose a new policy specifically outlining userpage profanity, until such time as a policy like that is enacted, my page will remain, regardless of how one or two users feel about it. I stand by my contention that wikipedia is not censored, and i'm both shocked and amazed that someone like you who so clearly understands wikipedia policies would fail to understand that basic concept. Batman2005 18:20, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. The policy directly addresses the issue here. You are required to be civil in ALL edits, your edits to your user page are not civil. They don't need to address profanity, because the profanity is only a part of the greater uncivil behaviour exhibited by your actions on your user page. Protection from censorship does not give you the right to be as uncivil as you like. --Crossmr 18:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You may also wish to reread the policy on censorship and pay close attention to this sentence: " some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links if they are relevant to the content (such as the article about pornography)" The exception is only set forth if the objectionable material is necessary to the article, it is not a blanket protection for user pages. Nor a protection to insert objectionable language in articles unless required by an article, for example one on profanity, or perhaps listing a famous quote from a movie/individual/etc--Crossmr 18:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should spend less time linking to things that are irrelevant and more time trying to find a specific policy that I have violated. You cannot do so, thus my page will remain. Batman2005 18:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll also point out that the page on censorship is a guideline, not a policy. Thus it is irrelevant, guidelines are not final. Policies are. Once again, my page will remain. Batman2005 18:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I've linked you to the policy you violated. Just becuase you choose to bury your head in the sand and ignore that fact doesn't mean no one has shown you it. WP:CIVIL is a policy, not a guideline. As is WP:NOT which discusses objectionable content. --Crossmr 18:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

And WP:CIVIL does not pertain to userpages, if it did it would clearly state that in the paragraph, as such it only pertains to talk pages and everything else in there. There is no policy that my page violates. If you don't like the page, don't visit it, simple as that, problem solved, stop wasting my time saying the same wrong stuff over and over again. Batman2005 18:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't need to specify user pages becuase it specifies "Civility is a rule for the conduct of edits, comments, and talk page discussions on all Wikipedias" it doesn't say "This only applies to articles and their talk pages" or "only to articles and all talk pages" it says "edits" and the content added to your userpage was done via an "edit". WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_censored which is a policy only extends protection to articles where the content is relevant. It doesn't say user pages can contain whatever objectionable content they want. --Crossmr 18:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong my friend, and I'm sorry my page offends you, but like I said, you're free to visit the million other pages. I have provided the "what can my user page not have" link and nowhere does it say profanity, WP:CIVIL is all well and good and I'll be civil in my edits, on talk pages and elsewhere, but it does not pertain to userpages, i'm sorry you don't see it that way, but I do. My page will remain. I would also like to point out the thousands of other user pages that have profanity on them and are not the subject of such heated debate here. I would advise those people who are offended to surf elsewhere and discontinue visiting my page. Batman2005 18:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You've given no evidence to show that this does not extend to userpages. I've given evidence that it extends to all edits, which were necessary to create your user page. i've also made a list of things you have to remove as per the guideline you wish to follow after stating above that you wouldn't follow any guidelines. You also need to remove anything that falls under "Opinion pieces not related to Wikipedia or other non-encyclopedic material" which covers everything I listed before but also the dead to me list and that would fall under "or other non-encyclopedic material". And you might also want to have a look at this statement: "Community policies, including Wikipedia:No personal attacks, apply to your user space just as they do elsewhere" This means WP:CIVIL applies to your user page. --Crossmr 18:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, my only question here is...what right do you have to tell me what to do? Are you my mother? Batman2005 18:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Now that you've been proven wrong, you're going to resort to that? You do not own your page, and it currently contains content in violation of more than one policy. You can choose to remove it, or procedure can be followed to remove it permanently. --Crossmr 18:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• Let me also point to [21] which clearly states what a userpage cannot have on it, and profanity is NOWHERE to be found. AGAIN....my page will remain. Batman2005 18:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

  thats a guideline, as you've pointed out, they have no bearing here. --Crossmr 18:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

  But if you'd like to use that as some basis, things you can't have "Personal statements that could be considered polemical, such as opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia", which means you need to remove your reference to kevin federline being a douche, the reference to the frats, this comment "I'm not afraid to say that I want to marry Ashley Leggat and provide her with lots of children." this statement I'd do the same to Amanda Bynes, Kellie Pickler, Nikki Reed, Autumn Reeser, Sabrina Bryan, Ashley Leggat, Cote de Pablo, Scarlett Johansson, Katherine Heigl, Emilie de Ravin, Jane Krakowski, Kristin Cavalleri, Amber Tamblyn, Lacey Chabert, and Brooke Hogan (but for gods sake don't tell her dad) This list "People who are alright...if not spectacular" as it has nothing to do with wikipedia, this list as well "People who are not alright"--Crossmr 18:47, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong again, as the "what can i have on my user page" clearly states that I may have things that I like and dislike. The stuff about linking Kevin Federline has been discussed previously and was allowed, thus i'm inclined to leave it there. You continue to try to find stuff to get me on and you'll continue to be proven wrong, I've been through this pointless excercise a few times now and EVERY time it has been decided that my page violates no policy. Proto had a complaint, I removed it, end of story. Batman2005 18:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You can list likes and dislikes, it doesn't say you can call someone a douche on your talk page. And as I pointed out above, those guidelines you now wish to hold onto state that all community policies apply to your user page, which includes WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. "There are quite a few users who I think are losers that edit here. One is the administrator who blocked me awhile ago for basically nothing." This is a personal attack and must be removed per those policies, and the rest of your page has to be made civil as per those same policies. --Crossmr 18:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Very well, i will delete the bit about people I think are losers, you're right about that, it is a personal attack. You have, however, not proven me wrong my friend. If you've proven anything its that you are vainly searching for any policy which I have violated. And that you are incapable of forumalating an argument centered around solid policy rather than you own interpretation of guidelines and policy. My page, minus what I just said I would delete will remain. If you want to keep debating that's fine, but I suggest you find some solid policies as I'll continue to shoot you down like I have been doing. Batman2005 19:03, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You said you wish to follow what is on Wikipedia:User_page This page clearly states "Community policies, including Wikipedia:No personal attacks, apply to your user space just as they do elsewhere. This means all policies apply to your userpage, which means WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL applies to your userpage. WP:CIVIL clearly states: "Starting a comment with: "Not to make this personal, but..." Which clearly covers your "Dead to me" section which also attacks all administrators by calling them dictators. You choose the guideline you wanted to follow, I've shown you the policy which it covers. You can choose to follow it or not. I'm going to assume good faith here and assume that now that you've been shown the proper policy and shown the offending segments of your userpage you will make a good effort to be a positive part of the commmunity. --Crossmr 19:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll remove the bit about dictators, NPA has been shown through the last time i had this conversation that it does not cover those who are not wikipedia editors, thus the stuff about Kevin Federline can stay, as was decided by consensus previously. And i think if you bothered to look past my userpage you'd see that I have been a positive member of this community for quite sometime, but alas, you only seem to focus on the bad. Dead to me is not a personal attack, it is my way of staying out of arguments with those users who insist on being disrespectful. It too will stay. Batman2005 19:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You can create that list without it being a personal attack. NPA doesn't apply to non-wikipedians, however WP:USER#What_can_I_not_have_on_my_user_page.3F covers that statement with "Personal statements that could be considered polemical, such as opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia". Kevin Federline being a douche seems pretty unrelated to wikipedia. My Frat is cooler than your gay Frat is also covered by this. Reworded you could probably keep a lot of this content, but the attitude on it has to be tuned down. Instead of Dead to me, perhaps "editors I do not communicate with". You also don't need to repeat that admins are dead to you several times. Its obvious you don't like or agree with the admins in general, so simply stating that you don't see eye to eye with them would make your stance clear without resorting incivility. And while your other edits might be stellar and worthy of publication, its not a free pass to be uncivil elsewhere. --Crossmr 19:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I think something you need to address here is that we are a community - and arguing over technicalities of policies does not aid the Wikipedia, and is rather disruptive. Your tone is not in my opinion following WP:AGF. If you want a freewebhost, go to geocities or something. Your "Dead to me" section, no matter what you say, seems to violate WP:NPA (a policy!) in that you are commenting on users and not content. Remember no-one owns any page (even a userpage), so your commenting of "it will stay" is invalid. Ian¹³/t 19:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

"Dead to me" would be a personal attack if it said "i wish all these users would die" it does not say that. It simply says that they are dead to me, which is completely acceptable according to consensus the last time it was brought up. I name no admins by name, thus no personal attacks there either. If arguing over policies does not aid wikipedia, why did you guys start it? A bit of the pot calling the kettle black it would seem. I am aware of what wikipedia is, if you have such a problem with my page, then like i said, you're free to create a policy specifically adressing it. Batman2005 19:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Whether you're attacking on individual, or a group of individuals, its still a personal attack. You're not attacking to them by wishing them death, you're referring to them in a disparaging manner which is a personal attack. You're devaluing them, whether by calling them names, or simply referring to them as "dead to you". It amounts to a personal attack and is not civil. There are two policies addressing it, and you've subscribed to a guideline which addresses the issues. Why create another policy you'll choose to ignore when there are 2 and a guideline already covering it? --Crossmr 20:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I personally think the current version of Batman2005's user page is acceptable - tame, even. Confessing to disliking someone isn't the same as insulting them if done tactfully, and could be useful to know in disputes. While I advise Batman2005 not to ignore users just because he dislikes them, it's pretty clear to me that this section is just a playful emulation of the Colbert Report's "Dead to Me" feature, not a hitlist, and we really have bigger fish to fry. Deco 23:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

no one said it was a hitlist. --Crossmr 23:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Nor did I intend to imply that. Deco 23:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

this section is just a playful emulation of the Colbert Report's "Dead to Me" feature, not a hitlist, then that statement was pointless if that isn't what you were implying. Just because he's emulating, or trying to emulate part of humour doesn't justify its use for attacking other users, nor does it justify uncivil behaviour. --Crossmr 01:18, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

For gods sake its not attacking anyone, nor is it uncivil, in fact...one or two of the users on there told me that they are honored to be listed. If they're not sensitive about it, why are you? Would you like me to put a big giant photo of people giving high fives, or how about people laughing and shaking hands? Is that how civil you want it? That section of the page doesn't offend the people on it so why does it offend you? Batman2005 01:40, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Have you asked everyone in these two groups: "# Power Hungry Admins...you know who you are! OH yeah! Admins who lecture you as if you're a child, then go on and do the same thing they were lecturing you about." I doubt it. --Crossmr 01:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is your userpage has a confrontational, aggressive and uncivil feel to it. You asked for which policy you violated. It was provided for you. --Crossmr 01:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Whatever, I do not believe that it is uncivil, if you think it is then just don't look at my page. Problem solved. Batman2005 02:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Well - we could say that about any page. If someone dued me for making defamatory comments on my userpage - I don't think 'well just don't look at it' is a very good defence. Ian¹³/t 08:23, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Also - your linking of certain words to people's biographies (especially your 'douche' link) is defamatory, and within Wikipedia uncivil. (Wikipedia:Wikilawyering comes to mind here). Ian¹³/t 08:29, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

No, its not, in fact that was the topic of a very long debate one of the times it was brought here and it was clearly established that it was not defamatory. You guys can keep reaching for things to get me on, i don't know what your hard on is for getting my user page changed but its pathetic that you've spent so much time arguing over a page you likely never visited until you started commenting here. I think my "then don't look at it" approach is the best way possible. Perhaps you guys are incapable of understanding that this has been discussed numerous times here and i'll continue to go with consensus there (as it was MUCH more than two guys teaming up for no reason) and keep my page as is because it violates no wikipedia policy. Seriously, its about time you guys stopped wasting your time and mine with this ridiculous excercise and just admit that while you find it upsetting to look at, that it doesn't break any policies. Batman2005 13:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, it breaks two policies, and just becuase you sit there and go "no, no, no" doesn't mean that it doesn't break those policies. Why don't you link to this previous discussion you keep citing, and one thing you have to remember is that concensus can change. --Crossmr 15:24, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Because it was two months ago on this very page, if you think i'm lying and you're not assuming good faith in my contention about it, then you can do the work and find it, you say it breaks two policies, i say it breaks none. Why does your opinion matter more? Why is your intrepretation of the rules better than mine? Are you implying that you're smarter than I am? Are you the wikipedia god? Is yours the final say in this? I must have missed that somewhere. No, you're not, right now there are two people saying it doesn't break those policies and two people saying it does. Thus...no consensus this time and i'll default back to previous consensus, if you want to see it you can do the work to find it, clearly you've got nothing better to do than wage war on my user page. Batman2005 15:49, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

No. I wasn't part of the first discussion and had no idea where to find it or when it took place. You've referenced it several times, but wikipedia is a big place, you need to provide links. Now you've just assumed bad faith by saying all that. There are also three people who don't agree with your page. See Joturners comment above near the top. You still haven't linked to the previous discussion. --Crossmr 16:01, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps if you had bothered to read what I had written, rather than spouting off the same stuff you always do you would see that if you want to see it, if you're assuming i'm lying you can check the archives of this very page. I don't care if I assumed bad faith, you're waging your personal ethics war on my userpage. Your opinion is that it breaks the civility policy, fine, we all know that, great, super...what do you want? I'm not changing it because it offends you, I don't feel that its a violation of policy, i don't feel as though its uncivil, its not defamatory and whoever said that it was needs to read up on defamation, as opinions can't be defamation as long as they're not presented as truth...which...my god they're not! The other user you reference commented MUCH before I removed the offending material that prompted it to be brought here in the first place. You've stated your opinion and for the last 6 or 8 posts you've made you've done nothing to further it so why keep posting? If you don't have anything new to add then just be safe in the knowledge that you put your piece out there and let the process run its course. Batman2005 16:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The process has run it course, 3 individuals feel its inappropriate and 2 do not. Which is a solid 60% concensus for its removal, but you'll ignore that too won't you? You've referenced a discussion as your defense and failed to provide a link for it, and replied with "find it yourself". Thats also a violation of WP:CIVIL. Tell me, can you prove Kevin Federline has never edited wikipedia? or that all of the people who's frat you refer to as "gay" have never edited wikipedia? This is your content that has been called into question and you have to defend it, which you haven't done other than repeating "No, no, no". Did you ask everyone in those two groups I mentioned whether or not they mind being on your page and referred to in that manner? I don't care if I assumed bad faith maybe you don't, but the community does. You don't exist in a bubble on wikipedia. --Crossmr 16:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

IF you're going to make stuff up (like your 3-2 consensus) then you should at least use people who commented on stuff that's still in the article, the user you cited hasn't commented since I removed the section he commented on! Yet you're clearly ignoring Deco who said that he thinks the current version of my page is acceptable, so lets see...tally up the votes here...mine, deco and proto, that's 3. You and Ian, that's 2. SO you're right...a 3-2 consensus as of now, so it'll stay, I like how you reference a comment from somebody about something completely different, yet ignore a comment that's perfectly relevant because it doesn't fit your argument, then say that I'm ignoring things. I have more than defended my position, its not my fault that you either don't understand it, can't accept it, don't want to hear it or whatever. And telling you to find the discussion yourself is not a violation of WP:CIVIL you're the one who wants to see it so you can find it, i know what it says. You seem to spend most of your time here trying to lecture me as if you're somehow more qualified or better than me in some way, which I find HIGHLY offensive, you're a user just like me so don't presume to think that you can lecture me about what wikipedia is or is not. Batman2005 16:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually joturner commented on your dead to me section which is still in the article, and I'm not ignoring deco. i'm ignoring you. Its your content thats being debated, and while you can defend it you can't form concensus becuase you're biased on your own content. And actually I attempted to find it and it doesn't exist in any time frame or location that you've claimed it to, so as far as I can tell, you're inventing it unless you can provide it. I've gone back to March 1, 2006 in the Incident archive and February 5th on the noticeboard. So if any discussion like this took place here, it was never archived. --Crossmr 16:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Now you're accusing me of lying, for someone who tries to put themselves up on the wikipedia pedestal you sure break a lot of the policies you preach about. Joturner commented on the part that was deleted, if you read his comment you'll see that. Here you go, consensus from the very last time, after you accused me of lying about it beind discussed [22] You'll notice that "The King of Kings" "Teresa Knott" "Calton" and "Petros" all supported (petros after suggesting I tone it down, which I did), while only Paul Cyr did not and one guy put a thing about free speech, there'a 4-1 consensus there that a page...which at that time was much more inflammatory was FINE. Now, i'll wait for you to apologize about calling me a liar. I'm sure you won't do that though, as you are incapable of admitting you're wrong. Batman2005 16:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

did you not say 2 months ago? That was only 3 1/2 weeks ago. Oh you did "Because it was two months ago on this very page" Joturner commented on the part that was deleted, if you read his comment you'll see that and he also commented on the dead to me section, go back and read it. That entire long comment is his. He's commented on both content that was removed and content that is still there. Calton didn't support you on that. He said the content may or may not be appropriate. Petros also suggested you tone it down, so while he didn't believe you violated a policy, he also didn't feel your content was appropriate either. so that drops it down to 2 support, 2 opposed and a neutral. and Sean Black clearly disagreed with what you had on your page, so thats actually a 2 support to 3 opposed and 1 neutral tally. You had no concensus previously. adding the new count, it is now 4 support, 6 opposed 1 neutral and again a concensus for removal. --Crossmr 16:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Did you not say you went back to March 1st and couldn't find it? Seems like you still called me a liar. You're clearly changing things around to fit what you want it to say, I will not change my page just because you are tallying the votes up so that no matter what they fit your pov. You are, like I said, engaging in your personal ethics war on this page and I think its ridiculous. I imagine you're familiar with "wikipedia is not a democracy" your simple voting method that you seem to think should be used (even though you're interpreting the votes to fit whatever you want them to say). You were proven wrong, there was a consensus the last time, you STILL cannot accept that, which is both hilarious and ridiculous. I don't, for the life of me understand, how you can say that sean black "clearly disagreed with what i had on my page" when he simply said "Incorrect. There is no right to free speech on Wikipedia. If you wish to publish material espousing your political/social/economic/sexual/religous viewpoints, go elsewhere.-Sean Black" There's nothing on my page about my views on any of those things. Once again you change things around to fit your pov. I think that throughout this entire process you have been both insulting and incivil, as such unless you have anything positive to offer to this discussion (which you have shown you do not) then I suggest you go edit elsewhere and stop trying to push your ethics and values on others. There is no consensus to delete as you falsely claim, i'm sorry you can't understand that. Batman2005 17:02, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Thats right, because obviously I skipped a couple of archives. Why would I search last weeks archive? or the last 4 weeks of archives, when you told me it was 2 months ago? I assumed good faith and that you would not mislead me on the time frame. I dropped in about a month ago on both archives and started going back. There was a concensus last time, it was for the removal of the material. You only changed it around to fit what you wanted to believe. Sean Black stated that that material wasn't appropriate on wikipedia and if you wanted to write those things you should take it elsewhere. You're writing those things, so they're not appropriate here. Kevin Federline being a douche is a social viewpoint. That frat being gay, is a social viewpoint. Who you want to have sex with, is a sexual viewpoint. There is a concensus to clean up the material. You choosing to ignore that, doesn't make it any less true. Your talk page speaks to your uncivil behaviour, your behaviour in this discussion also speaks to that. Your userpage is an extension of that behaviour. Telling people to go locate the evidence to support your point of view because you don't want to is uncivil. Assuming bad faith is uncivil, which you've done and indicated you don't care about. You've also broken WP:OWN by claiming that the page will not change. The concensus is there, the policies and guideline broken have been clearly spelled out for you. In spite of all your uncivil behaviour I'm going to assume good faith and leave you to clean it up appropriately. Good luck with it. --Crossmr 17:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm through with this discussion with you as you are completely close minded, i will not change my user page and if you do it will be reverted, there is no consensus here, there was previously, you just refuse to believe it, just as you refuse to admit to implying that I'm a liar. You are NOT the wikipedia final authority as much as you would apparently like to be. You and Ian do not constitute a consensus, I'm sorry you can't understand that. You're right, I don't care about assuming bad faith with you as you've repeatedly done so with me, you called me a liar, you proceeded to lecture me on wikipedia policy as if you were the one who wrote it. You are not a better person regardless of how much you continuously try to place yourself as one. You've spent this entire conversation lecturing as if you're a parent disciplining a small child. You are uncivil and your proposal to censor my userpage based on your own interpretation of the rule is more damaging to wikipedia than anything I have ever done here. I have been supported in this in the past, yet once again you ignore that. Like I said, i suggest you go and edit elsewhere if you don't like my page, wikipedia is not run by you and you do not constitute the final say, this is an ongoing discussion and will continue to be so, as is, there is no consensus, a consensus is not simply a majority vote (were that the case my page would still remain as i have the consensus...its ok though, i know you'll disagree and change things around to fit your pov again). Batman2005 17:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

you called me a liar where did I call you a liar? I simply pointed out that with the information you gave me I could not find the discussion and from where I sat there was no evidence the discussion had taken place. I gave you ample opportunity to provide a link to the discussion, instead you gave me false information about its location and told me to go find it myself. That is the very definition of uncivil behaviour. I was simply debating a point. If you view that as lecturing, you're free to read other conversations. No one is forcing you to read this one or continue to participate in it. You've made your position clear that you feel your page doesn't violate those policies. --Crossmr 18:33, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Guys please! Batman, I don't think he was calling you a liar. Crossmr, is it possible that he miscalculated the length of time between discussions, obviously one took place before..it doesn't seem to me that Batman was trying to mislead you. I think you have both made your positions clear, just wait and see. I think a cooling off period for both might be in order. FordTuffinIt 18:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

    agreed. --Crossmr 18:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm rather new to this encyclopedia thing. I looked at the page in question after seeing some of his posts on the national soccer team page for the usa, and I personally disagree with some of the people he doesn't like and that kind of stuff, but i don't see any reason that it should be deleted. FordTuffinIt 18:02, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Note please also see [23] for more support of my position in this pointless debate. Batman2005 15:53, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Consensus on redirect and delete

Several admins have been deleting and/or changing the original research redirect so it no longer redirects to Wikipedia:No original research and instead redirects to an article such as research. The reason User:Cyde wishes to change the article is b/c Wikipedia should "NEVER allow a cross-namespace redirect to squat on what could be a legitimate encyclopedic page." I personally disagree with this b/c the redirect has been around for more than two years and is linked to by well over 1000 talk pages. In addition, there is no obvious article that the redirect is squatting on. That said, I am willing to go with whatever the consensus decides to do.

I tried to start a discussion about this at Talk:Original research but another admin has also deleted the article. I've reverted it yet again but have no wish to start a wheel-war over this. Since a bunch of admins are involved in this, can we get other admin opinions. Personally, I don't see any reason why this redirect should be deleted without a AfD since there is no speedy delete reason to justify this action.--Alabamaboy 13:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Please read WP:ASR. We are writing an encyclopedia, not perpetuating Wikipedia. --Cyde 13:53, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Kill it with a stick. "Original research" is hardly a Wikipedia-specific term. freakofnurture 13:56 30 June, 2006 (UTC)

Changing it to an appropriate redirect doesn't require an AFD or speedy deletion. I personally agree that cross namespace redirects should be kept to a n absolute minimum and certainly not exist for a term which has a strong context outside of wikipedia like Original research does. Length of time of existance I can't see as relevant, we wouldn't allow OR itself to remain in an article just because it's been there a long time etc. etc. --Pgk 13:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

No, changing to an appropriate redirect doesn't require an AfD. But admins keep deleting the redirect (see [24]) am I wrong in believing this is no justified reason for deleting the redirect without an AfD? As for changing the redirect to another redirect or an article, consensus should be gained before doing that.--Alabamaboy 14:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong in believing that there is no justified reason for deleting the redirect ... please read WP:ASR. And you sure as hell don't need AFDs for redirects! --Cyde 14:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I restored the deleted revisions. It's a redirect now, there's no harm in having cross-namespace-redirects in the history of an article. And someone should run a bot that changes all these links to the appropriate page now. --Conti|✉ 14:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite familiar with WP:ASR. The problem is that there will now be over 1000 talk pages linking to a wrong place. If you go to Neutral point of view or NPOV, the page is a disamibiguation page which includes a link to Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view. Perhaps we could do that. That's why I proposed seeking consensus on this issue so we can find a solution everyone could live with instead of having 1000 plus pages linking to the wrong place.--Alabamaboy 14:09, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

If consensus develops to change the redirect, then that bot would definately be needed. Excellent idea.--Alabamaboy 14:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd still be interested in hearing from other admins on if it was right for three admins to delete this redirect (see [25]) without an AfD. Under Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Redirects, this does not appear to have been a valid reason for deletion.--Alabamaboy 14:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

No, it wasn't. But why do people keep lumping my edit of the page in with them, as you did above? -- SCZenz 14:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any reason at all for deletion here, simply changing the redirect would do the thing. --Conti|✉ 14:24, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Apologies for doing that, SCZenz. I was only trying to refer to the admins who deleted the article. Best,--Alabamaboy 14:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The approach taken by a small set of admins in dealing with cross-namespace redirects appears to be as follows:

1. Delete them and hope no admin notices enough to restore it;
2. If anyone notices, delete it again;
3. Tell the restoring admin how stupid they are, with the additional use of profanity to help make things clear;
4. If they still notice, change its target;
5. If someone changes you back, change it again;
6. Tell the editor how stupid they are, with the additional use of profanity to help make things clear;
7. Regularly cite a policy which doesn't exist (ASR is only a style guideline) in support of your various actions;
8. Iterate until RfC.

Now will one of the editors in question (Cyde would be a good candidate) tell me why this is the optimal way to approach this situation? -Splash - tk 14:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This appears (partly) to be a problem looking for a solution: What shall my bot do now? There also appear to have some difficulty understanding the difference between policy and guideline. Some things which should be Wikipedia 101: A) Don't do controversial changes en mass. B) Don't insult people who complain. C) Engage in productive dialog that supports your edits. Is that so hard? --brenneman 14:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I suggest to wait until things get calmer again, then use the bot to pipe the links to Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. And might I suggest: D) Don't do whatever the heck you want because you're convinced that you're right. --Conti|✉ 14:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

LOL, nice attempt at slandering my motivations, but if you actually look at my actions you'll see that I've been trying to push the redirect fixes off on other people because I don't want to deal with the hassle. Ditto for everyone else, actually (I think Gurch eventually got roped into doing some). But let me just go on record saying that your accusation of the reason for this is totally false. --Cyde 18:29, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't really see what the problem is here. If Wikipedia:No original research exists, there's no reason for No original research. Just fix all the internal redirects and delete the redundant main-namespace redirect. We have multiple namespaces so we don't need to clutter our encyclopedia with non-article material. --Tony Sidaway 18:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

what Tony said, and use a bot. But be more laid back about these things, please! It doesn't need to be fixed by tomorrow, and there is no need to wheel-war about it! For the time being, you can {{softredirect}} it, perhaps making it a dab page. There is no need for an original research article or redirect (nothing should link there), because the term is tautological (all research is 'original' at the time it is done, otherwise it wouldn't be research but citation, although it may of course transpire later that the same result had been found before). dab (ᛏ) 21:24, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly favour Dbachmann's approach. We should avoid redirecting common English phrases that aren't Wikipedia specific to project space, and the links to it need to be fixed, preferably in an automated manner. Meanwhile, create original research, and put links to research and WP:NOR on it. Is it self-reference? Sure, but it's temporary. Wikipedia:Don't panic. Deco 23:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

To Tony, (ᛏ), and Deco: The problem was that several admins were deleting the redirect without following speedy delete criteria or going through an RfD and were also ignoring attempts to discuss the matter. Personally, I don't have an issue with deleting the redirects. What I have an issue with are admins who ignore calls for consensus, initiate personal attacks when someone asks why they are doing something, and also don't follow the guidelines for deleting redirects. As admins we are supposed to follow Wikipedia guidelines and policies, not do as we wish merely b/c it is too troublesome to bother with said guidelines and policies. Best,--Alabamaboy 13:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

As one of the older folks, I must say Splash's characterization seems most accurate. We've had these things for ages, but suddenly they must all go, go overnight, and anyone who disagrees is screamed at. That's not good practice. It's not how we "make an encyclopedia," either. It's how we pitch a fit. No one likes to have a fit pitched at him unless he has a bat in his hand. Now, cut it the heck out. Get your guideline made policy by consensus, after plenty of discussion, then get a solution in place other than "Whoopsie, it went away," and then unleash your bots. Otherwise, it's that moronic "I have 85,000,000 edits to pages I have never read" impulse that's making writing anything impossible. (Try linking to a month somewhere because you want people to read up on the month. I'll bet it'll be unlinked within a week by some helpful bot.) Geogre 17:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

subst:

When going though 'Review and restore deleted pages', if I preview a page with an afd notice in (even if it has been subst'ed) it shows an error saying it needs to be subst:'ed (<template error: this template must be substituted. Please replace {{AFD}} with {{subst:AFD}}.>) and I can not see any of the following page content. Any ideas why? (To replicate please go here and click preview.) Ian¹³/t 17:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't even get that! My toolbar is all over the page, and a big blank space, and the article's text does not appear :S Iolakana|^T 19:59, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Text is added to certain templates wishes causes it to replace the template with the "must be subst" template. This is added to certain templates to get people to subst them.Voice-of-All 21:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but the point is that this very much breaks the Special:Undelete view of things. Probably the conditionals code controlling this needs to be fixed or taken out. -Splash - tk 22:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that. Quite annoying, since you can't see any of the article text and can't fix it. Why is it doing that? The template IS substed. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of YOUR OPINIONS} 22:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I have filed a BugZilla bug (#6505). Ian¹³/t 14:46, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Mu'tazili/Mihna and User 171.64.90.X

This user has added vast amounts of unformatted material to Mihna and Mu'tazili. I didn't know what to remove and it wasn't sourced... so, I figured this might expose it to more people who may know better what to do. gren グレン 21:54, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You can dicuss this and present the facts and diffs on the discussion page of the article. Alternatively, you can also notify other active users interested in editing the article. --Nearly Headless Nick 09:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks like he's adding sources now. - Merzbow 18:21, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Ban IP 68.46.191.11

This IP needs to be banned. He was warned twice before and recently went on a vandalism spree, including Talk:Manhattanville College and Clark University, and my own talk page, Talk:Thomas.macmillan. All of his edits were reverted. He has been vandalizing pages related to me, particularly on the Manhattanville College page. He is someone I know and he is harassing me. --Thomas.macmillan 00:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Judging by his contributions, the vandal seems to have let up. If he starts again, he'll be blocked. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 04:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a little correction. it's IP not ISP. :) --Woohookitty^(meow) 04:37, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Leaving such messages on WP:AIV would rather be more effective and helpful. Regards, --Nearly Headless Nick 09:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate username

Is Gdsrtangl13 an inappropriate username? I'm guessing that the "13" is leet for "le" and that combined with "srtangl" it is meant to be "strangle", so the meaning could be something like "god strangle", "good strangle" or the strangling of someone named Gd. -- Kjkolb 10:47, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course it could also belong to GoodSortOfAngel—a 13-year-old girl from the Midwest who likes to use the internet but got tired of typing out a really long username. Meh. My two cents is that it takes a pretty tortured reading of the username to get to something even borderline offensive. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:58, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Ha ha, brilliant! Thanks, TacoDeposit 16:00, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it would be stretching it a bit to imply that the username in question was inappropriate. FordTuffinIt 18:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll bring the torches if you get the pitchforks. Sheesh. --Golbez 21:27, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was suggesting that she be burned alive. ;-) -- Kjkolb 22:37, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Infinity0

This case has closed.

• Infinity0 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is placed on standard revert parole for one year. He may not perform more than one content revert per page per day and every content revert must be accompanied by discussion on the relevant talk page.
• RJII (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is banned from editing Wikipedia for one year for continued violation of his previous ruling, by incivility and edit warring,

For the Arbitration Committee. --Tony Sidaway 11:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Election

This case has closed.

• Article probation: The articles which are the locus of dispute, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Election/Proposed decision#Locus of dispute, are placed on probation. Any editor may be banned from any or all of the articles, or other reasonably related pages, by an administrator for disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, incivilty, and original research. The Arbitration Committee reserves the right to appoint one or more mentors at any time, and will review the situation in one year.
• The editors involved in this Arbitration proceeding may continue to edit the articles using the wiki process.

For the Arbitration Committee. --Tony Sidaway 13:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Wikimanagement

I have blocked this user partly because of the username but also because they were making contentious edits to Australian articles. The edits are similar to others made over the last few days that have been reverted several times. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:25, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

User Rjensen is edit warring at American Civil War

He's been pretty good this last week or so, but JimWae and he got into it over necessary citations. I tried to make neutral statements, and other editors are trying to help, but User Rjensen has multiple (2 by my count) 3RR violations on this page in last 24 hours. see ACW talk. BusterD 16:22, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but i think I saw a page the other day where you could report 3RR violations, i'm kind of new so i'm not 100% sure. FordTuffinIt 18:04, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The page is here. - Merzbow 18:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Have posted request on appropriate page. Original request was intended to convey a general tendency, and merely not report this specific incident. Thanks for standing up for policy. Double posting not intended, if I should delete this notice, please revert. BusterD 19:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

AFD closure for review

My closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Economic System of Islam (book) as "keep" has been called into question, especially for my closing comment that "AFD is not a substitute for {{cleanup}}". I have offered to have the closure reviewed here for maximum transparency. (ESkog)^(Talk) 16:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

As the nominator and the person who prompted this review which was offered without my asking, I simply want to state that I support the decision, though happen to disagree with it. I think this was a difficult AfD, and wikipedia will be stronger for a further pair of eyes. There is no criticism of ESkog in my asking for clarification of the term used, as you may see from our discussion on User talk:ESkog. -- Fiddle Faddle 16:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Delete my account?

I'll be leaving Wikipedia permanently, and would like my account deleted. Is that possible? RJII 19:16, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

We can't delete the account, but we can delete your userspace. Jkelly 19:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

We would also never delete an account based on a request posted by someone who is forging another user's signature. User:Zoe|^(talk) 20:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello I am experiancing Personal Attacks; I have asked th users to stop but there is persisistnace

I am sorry. I do not want to look like I am spamming. I contacted an admin directly a while ago, but I guess he is not there and I contacted one today, but I also think he is not there. I just want this behaviour to stop.

They are making unfounded attaacks and accusations against me. As show here for example.[[26]]. The user who made this also did not sign which put together with an anoymous comment is not a good sign. I would like to know on what grounds user:Baku87 and user:Grandmaster are making these claims. I have never made any negative comments on contributions. They continue to make these claims without any proof. 69.196.164.190

Here is more examples; [27] Once, again can he please provide proof for these claims, especially the anti-Azari statments he keeps claiming I made???

The user:Grandmaster iscontinuing to make unfounded accusations and attacks against me. As shown here[28]. I left him a polite warning, but noticed that this has been a discourse of behaviour and that he has been warned for uncivil behaviour in the past. I told him once on his talk page to be polite and keep all comments directed towards edits and that he has no right to make such accusations and additionally no grounds; I said I will let it pass as a warning and act in good faith and consider it an honest mistake on his part. But after looking at his talk page and contributions I have noticed he is making accusations to other editors about me and is still continuing to do so as you can see above. Any comment I make on a talk page is labelled POV and attacked right away? It is automatically lablled anti-Azari! I have no idea how saying every human being is equal and that we are all brothers and sisters is bad or anti-Azari? These comments are groundless, uncivil and simple attacks.

Can you please talk to him as an administrator. I do not appreciate this harassment. Like I have said, I am not here to fight, I am here to edit and to enjoy editing. User:Grandmaster continues to accused me of being anti-Azari when I myself am a Azari!? I do not know what makes him an authority to make such attacks or conclusions? He is basing some of his rationale on articles I have edited and continuing to claim I am another user, which is okay as long as it is civil, but it is not civil these wrong assertions are expressed through actually uncivil attacks. I would like him to stop making uncivil comments about me to other users and on article talk pages. Can you please get him to provide proof about the anti-Azari statments I have made! I am pretty sure I would be blocked if I made any anti-anything statments! It is easy to make such assertions, but can he provide proof before attacking my name on talk pages?

His claims does not make personal attacks legitmate or okay nor do they allow uncivil behaviour. He continues to make them and say I am anti-Azari! I do not appreciate this type of trolling and personal attacks. Regards 69.196.164.190

Have you posted anything to the Personal Attack Noticeboard yet? Shadow1 20:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense Article

A nonsense article was created at Jimmy Tolland, seems like a teen wanting a biography of himself. I've blanked the page for now, and I'm hoping an administrator can delete it. Thanks. PerfectStorm 00:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

PerfectStorm when a page like this appears tag it with {{db-nonsense}}. I've tagged it with that. An admin will delete it faster because she or he will notice the page in the category. ForestH2 00:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Since a relatively coherent article that neither asserts the notability of its biographical subject nor appears to be about a notable individual isn't really nonsense, {{db-bio}} is likely more appropriate; speedy deletion will likely occur in any case, but the distinction between nonsense and no assertion of notability is sometimes of import. Joe 05:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Joe's appraisal of the situation is accurate. Speedy deleting for the wrong reason confuses new users and gives them grounds to raise it for undeletion - don't do it. Deco 01:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser requests are piling up...

There are at least 5 days' worth of sign-ups on there, 19 users who have requested to be approved for use of this special editor. This requires the attention of an admin. Here's the link: Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage

--Transhumanist 19:24, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Need for Speedy Keep (update- Speedy Kept)

Would an admin kindly Speedy Keep this overwhelmingly snowballed Template:Fact TfD so that the template can be returned to it's normal appearance? Thanks. Netscott 22:02, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

This has been speedy kept after the TfD nominator withdrew his nomination. Cheers. Netscott 22:24, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Images appearing in Category:Orphaned articles

Can someone get around to speedying some of the dozen images in Category:Orphaned articles that are both orphaned and unencyclopedic? We don't need cheap porn filling up wikimedia's servers.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I just deleted all of the copyvios there. The freely-licensed ones should be moved to Wikimedia Commons or taken to WP:IFD if they are absolutely useless. Jkelly 01:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll get around to listing them on ifd.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 16:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Page Size

This page is 284 kilobytes long. This may be longer... Isn't Crypticbot supposed to keep it below 256 kb!? Freddie _Message? 23:29, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, unless something is wrong, crypticbot does so everyday at 00:00 UTC. :-) Netscott 23:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll wait 15 mins. Freddie _Message? 23:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You'll have to wait another full day; a quick look at Special:Contributions/Crypticbot shows the bot stopped working half a day ago. I'll leave a message to User:Cryptic about it. --cesarb 00:05, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Edit/conflict - Just what I was about to say: Maybe you'll have to wait slightly longer judging by history. ;-) Netscott 00:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Cryptic hasn't edited since March 20 and therefore has not responded to comments since then about his bot or anything else. Does he monitor the bot at all? Not just while it is running, I mean at all. Does he just leave his computer on or is the bot set up somewhere else? If he is willing, perhaps someone else should take over operation of the bot. -- Kjkolb 09:57, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a dedicated machine availiable if needed for a backup. --mboverload@ 10:28, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Cyptic appears to have left the project. I have no idea if anyone has a copy of the bot or where it runs from. Secretlondon 11:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Crypticbot is still running, apparently entirely on its own since Cryptic left, unsupervised, for five weeks now. It hasn't malfunctioned, but shouldn't it be blocked for being completely unsupervised? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 11:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I've just blocked indefinitely - but I won't revert if anyone wants to unblock. I think we should check to see if all our active bots have active owners. Secretlondon 11:55, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Curiously I've just tried to remove its bot status and it didn't have it set.. Secretlondon 12:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Tut tut! Iolakana|^T 15:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It would be very nice to get a new operator or a replacement bot, since manually archiving frequently used pages every day by the date of the last post in a discussion is rather tedious. Maybe the bot should be unblocked for at least a few days so that we can explore our options. The pages that it archives will fill up pretty fast. Finding orphaned AfD nominations with it was very helpful as well, but it looks like it hasn't been doing that for a while. I don't know how orphaned nominations are identified now, or if it is done on a systematic basis at all, so restarting that might be good, too. Whoever decides to try to make contact should probably trying emailing him, since he doesn't seem to be checking his talk page. I'd go for it, but I don't understand all of the technical aspects of bots. -- Kjkolb 19:27, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I messaged User:Werdna648 who owns User:Werdnabot about potentially archiving these pages. Hopefully we'll get a response soon. Netscott 19:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Cryptic appears to have jsut reemerged to reply to a "bot broken" message on his talk page. I messaged him to reply if he was going to "stay with the project" at least in capacity as a bot operator; and if so I would remove the block on the bot account. Waiting for a reply... — xaosflux ^Talk 00:36, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

And Essjay has offered to run it on the toolserver if someone helps him with perl knowledge (see Cryptic's talk). --cesarb 18:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Protected deleted articles

Is there any sort of consensus about how long an article needs to stay protected against recreation? I'm looking at W:SALT and WP:PDP, seeing article titles that have been protected for many months. At what point should the protection be lifted and the tag removed? I don't think most re-creation vandals have multi-month attention spans. Joyous! | Talk 00:17, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Post to WP:RFPP and put it under Requests for unprotection. An article is usally only kept semi-protected or full protected for a few days. There are some ones that are protected indefinte or longer. --ForestH2 | + | √+ | √ | √- | - 00:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

"indefinte or longer" - you can get longer than indefinate?! Thats like Infinity plus 1! :P Ian¹³/t 14:21, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Need copyright help

Image:Rudy Giuliani face.jpg is marked with a federal PD tag but plainly appears to come from a Washington State government source (per Commons). This is especially important, since this is a very popular image, part of a popular userbox. Can anyone deal with the situation please? - CrazyRussian talk/email 07:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Currently it looks fine as they've found a cc-by image to replace it with. Secretlondon 11:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Commons:Commons:Village pump or Commons:Commons:Help desk is over that way. =P Kotepho 20:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah. silly me - CrazyRussian talk/email 17:02, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nguyen Thi Hong Vaan

• User:Gidonb keeps vandalising this page. --Haham hanuka 16:23, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me? I never vandalized any article or page in the entire Wikipedia. If you disagree with the speedy you should have inserted the "hangon" tag or spoken with an administrator. One is not allowed to simply remove speedies one disagrees with. [29] Calling me a vandal with my name in the edit summaries, while vandalizing the speedy tag, is very insulting and violates civility. [30] The rules for removing the speedy tag are in the box. [31] gidonb 16:57, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

2 cents: Gidonb: Don't do this. The correct way is to fix the nomination then vote for a speedy delete.

Haham hanuka: learn how to list AFD pages. See WP:AFD and follow the instructions. As much as we appreciate the help, you need to do it correctly. Sasquatch t|c 23:49, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Sasquatch, again I have no problem with the nomination. My only problem is with the continuous disrespect for our procedures. I clean up after him all the time. Haham hanuka has been told hundreds of times not just to drop AfD templates, cleanup templates, expand templates, POV templates and other templates. All these require some work, something he seems not to be interested in. He just continues to attack all those around him, vandalizing, lazy-dropping templates, falsely quoting consensuses, pushing POV, recreating deleted articles in AfDs, as if nobody is talking to him and nobody is out there. The Wikipedia in his mother tongue has banned him forever, I think it is time to consider the same. gidonb 00:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

-Rall- (talk · contribs)

Created within the last 15 minutes or so; awfully close to User:-Ril- but, rather than block immediately, I thought I'd get some opinions first. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 06:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Good catch. It is unlikely that the two are the same, or that good ole Cheesedreams will repeat herself, but I blocked the account and left a note to be safe. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:41, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I agree with the unlikelihood now that the user has had contribs; I'd go so far as to say it's almost undoubtedly not the same person. Still, that user will want another name ;) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 08:21, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Satchel Cohen hoaxer

It looks like a ring of sockpuppets and hoax articles. List is being compiled on User:Tyrenius/Satchel Cohen hoaxer. It has been listed on Requests for investigation. Tyrenius 09:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have a problem with a slightly creative application of G3 (pure vandalism) here? Just zis Guy you know? 15:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Not I, especially since on AfD an avalanche of pure white snow is building against retention! - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:58, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

They're all starting to come up now on AfD with unanimous "delete", and, bearing in mind the background research into them, I don't think anyone is going to object. Tyrenius 16:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It is done. A Wikiquote admin will need to do the needful as well. Just zis Guy you know? 17:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice work. Thanks. Saves wasting any more time. I've left a message on Wikiquote. Will the sockpuppet aspect be dealt with via RFI? Tyrenius 17:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

You want them blocked? I don't mind doing that. Just zis Guy you know? 09:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

JzG the edit warrior

I am involved in a content dispute at Association of British Drivers. This group campaigns actively against "inappropriate" (in the eyes of the speeders) enforcement of speed limits, asserts that car ownership should be more affordable, and claims that fuel taxation is too high.

In the section on criticisms of ABD we have the following facts, cited from reliable sources:

• Taxation per car in the UK is around the European average, similar to France and Italy, higher than Germany, much lower than the Netherlands or Ireland ([32]). Comparing individual elements of motoring taxation, such as fuel duty, between countries is of questionable relevance, as different countries strike different balances between fuel duty, vehicle excise duty and road tolls.
• The overall cost of motoring in Britain in 2003 was below the 1980 level in real terms, although the real cost of fuel was 7% higher, and bus and coach fares rose by 34% and rail fares by 36% in real terms over the same period. According to the RAC Foundation the major cost of motoring is the capital and depreciation costs of the vehicle, with fuel costs and excise duty being around one third of the cost of running a small car.
• ABD claim they are opposed to inappropriate automated speed limit enforcement, but this is widely seen as opposition to all automated speed limit enforcement, or even that they actually oppose speed limits. There is robust evidence that reducing speeds reduces both the incidence and the severity of collisions.

User:DeFacto is generally a decent chap, but insists on removing these as he asserts the link between these criticisms and the stated policy of ABD is WP:OR. I disagree, and the comments have been in there a while.

I am bringing this here because I am personally involved, I don't want to block anyone or lock an article when I am involved in the content itself, and because I might be wrong (obviously I don't think so, but then I would say that). Just zis Guy you know? 15:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Transcluding individual WP:DRV debates

WP:DRV has a gargantuan history, and is unwatchable if you're only following one discussion. We ought to start transcluding individual debates, quite like AfD. Has this been proposed before? It makes eminent sense. I would like to start a discussion - perhaps here - or at a better place if one is available. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Iolakana|^T 16:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

This has ben discussed many times on WT:DRV (you know, where you would expect the discussion? there is even current discussion of it!) and per-debate subpages are not well liked by some. Currently, debates are on one page per day. There is little reason to change that. Kotepho 19:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• (copied from WT:DRV) Well, the daily logs are already being transcluded. I don't think there are enough entries to warrant having a subpage for each and every review. --Deathphoenix ʕ 04:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Travb

I'd like to make an exception to him not commenting on fair use images on Wikipedia:Fair use criteria/Amendment/Consensus. I think we need to use some common sense here, obviously it's not fair that he can't state his opposition on that page, even if that might be in the strongest possible terms! I don't agree with the stance he takes, incidently, but I have promised him that if he adds his comments to the page and someone blocks him then I will reverse the decision, with the caveat that no personal attacks are allowed. If I'm not on the site and someone blocks him for commenting, please leave a polite note on the admins page and then reverse the decision. Let's be fair here, and not silence debate! - Ta bu shi da yu 15:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd support Travb being allowed to state his opinion and why he opposes the proposal. --Alabamaboy 17:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

"Bed-wetting liberal" not deleted properly

This was an attack page that was repeatedly recreated and was a candidate for speedy deletion when it was tagged with {{deletedpage}} without deleting the history. The page was then protected but the content of the original page is still in the history: [33] [34]. I hereby ask that someone remove the aforementioned edits from the history so that they are only accessible by administrators (or not at all). 69.117.4.237 18:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Having trouble remembering what is and isn't criteria for speedy deletion?

Well now you can!

WikipediaRules are a series of fully printable guides to rules we have. I currently have 3 easy to read pages ready to print and keep as a reference on your desk. They include the code (A7 and such), a quick name, more description, AND the tag to use to delete them!

Best of all, it's completely free. Get your WikipediaRules reference sheets today!

User:Mboverload/wikipediarules
--mboverload@ 19:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

(In Microsoft Word format. —Keenan Pepper 20:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC))

Open Office. Would you like me to convert them to PDF? --mboverload@ 20:36, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Converting to PDF would be a good idea, because of the fonts; not everyone might have the same fonts you used, while they would be embedded on the PDF. --cesarb 20:44, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It uses Verdana and Times New Roman, which all computers should have. I tried to install CutePDF Writer but I'm having problems right now. Sorry =( --mboverload@ 20:49, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Converted it to PDF without problem with Open Office. I suggest you to install PDFCreator, which installs a virtual printer. Then open your document, print it, and select the virtual PDF writer as printer. That would generate the PDF version. -- ReyBrujo 21:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

(By the way, is this the right place to announce this? :)) -- ReyBrujo 21:07, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the Village Pump, but Wikipedia:Noticeboard is only for geographic-realted notices; so... my guess is as good as your guess. Iolakana|^T 21:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

All computers should have as long as they use either Windows or the core fonts for the web ☺. --cesarb 21:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Why not make a wiki page and print that? As for announcing, it could go in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-07-04 08:32Z

I'm really getting fed up of death threats now...

While the person in question is probably just trolling for a reaction, I have a right to be f**king pissed off with the sheer amount of death threats I've been receiving lately for being an admin on this site. This one is the most recent of a line of threats I have received. I would like to make an official report of it because I don't believe that kind of thing should be allowed. However aside from going the police who probably won't do anything anyway what can I do to follow this through and report this troll for threatening me? -- Francs2000 File:Flag of Buckinghamshire.png 22:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep, it's bullshit. The IP tracks to Chicago, Illinois. Here's the IP provider:[35]--MONGO 22:33, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

This seem to be happening more and more is it not? From the 8 months or so I have been on wikipedia this kind of stuff seems to become more common. (including the "outing" business recently). Which really is too bad. But besides reporting it to the ISP and perhaps the police, I don't see any other way. Garion96 ^(talk) 22:39, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's Chicago PD contact info. -Kmf164 (talk contribs) 22:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the threat from Francs2000's talk page. Now can a developer deletethe offensive revisions from the text?? --Sunholm(talk) 22:52, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, a developer isn't required for that anymore. There are 17 users with the ability to hide revisions like this and they are listed here. --Woohookitty^(meow) 22:57, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you not do that for the moment please? I have emailed my friendly local copper with an enquiry as to what they can do about it, and so the entyr would need to remain for the time being so that they can see it. Many thanks for your message though. -- Francs2000 File:Flag of Buckinghamshire.png 23:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Why would you "destroy the evidence"? Titoxd^(?!?) 22:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

People don't like stuff like that hiding in their talk page history. I say oversight it... but I guess what I think doesn't really matter. --Lord Deskana (talk) 23:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind it lurking there, and if I really had an objection to it as an admin I can get rid of it easily enough without poking oversight people with a stick. -- Francs2000 File:Flag of Buckinghamshire.png 23:07, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Apologies for deleting it, I thought I was doing right. Sorry. Well, Libellous revisions were removed from GWB by developers. --Sunholm(talk) 23:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It's still there in the page history. -Kmf164 (talk contribs) 23:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Francs2000, I thought you were requesting it to be oversighted. Sorry, I misread it. Don't apologise Sunholm, you've got nothing to apologise for. Reverting it was the right thing to do. --Lord Deskana (talk) 23:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I am trying to help where I can. --Sunholm(talk) 23:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

My enquiry was ways that it could be reported, not "can someone please remove it"? It's an easy misunderstanding to make. -- Francs2000 File:Flag of Buckinghamshire.png 23:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I am willing to take up dedicated responsibilities of contacting the ISPs of people who threaten physical harm to an admin. How this would work I'm not sure, but a go-to place for admins who feel threatened is needed. --mboverload@ 01:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Threatening death or rape is a felony in virtually all U.S. jurisdictions (and probably most other countries). This psychopath is hopefully only a slight physical threat to any Wikipedians but he is likely a dangerous presence in his local community. I doubt his antisocial behavior is or will always be confined to Wikipedia. Even if he never acts on threats, this behavior is chilling to people when made by someone locally -- that's why the law treats even threats of this sort as serious crimes. He should be reported and I'd be happy to do so. Does WP:LEGAL still apply in this sort of case? I hope not. --A. B. 01:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's going to block you under LEGAL for reporting a death threat to the police. In fact it could be a crime to do so as it would be obstructing justice. However, it may be time for wiki to set up a dedicated service for automatic reporting of such things. There's no reason why they should be tolerated. Tyrenius 01:55, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

There is already ISP reporting via WP:ABUSE, no reason this couldn't be done there as well. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 07:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

If the police acted in the episode that troubled Phil Sandifer I would think they would respond when direct threats as these are made. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-07-04 08:29Z

Yeah, hand the offending revisions, the IP adress and a Whois trace of the IP and the timestamp of the edits to the apropriate law enforcement agency and charge him with death treats. That should be enough for the police to get a warrant to get his identity from his ISP. No reason to write it off as trolling, even if it is just hot air (wich is likely) it's not something that should be tolerated, and a visit from the cops should make him think twise about doing it again at the very least. --Sherool (talk) 12:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Just so that you all know, I reported this incident to the police in the UK yesterday. It will now be investigated under the crime of threatening with the intention of creating fear (or something like that). -- Francs2000 File:Flag of Buckinghamshire.png 08:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I hope the threats against you stop. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-07-06 08:29Z

Another death threat today against RHaworth, this time by 64.5.146.13; that IP address is registered to a US radio station. (I suspect it may be another zombie PC being used by the same guy that threatened RHaworth and Francs2000 a few days ago.--A. B. 19:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

ER MD

Please note that part of this is what I put this on on Titoxd's userpage, I'm copying it to here as I want some opinions. If that's alright with you all, that is.

So here's the story. This guy likes to remove everything from his userpage, and that includes warnings. I stumbled into it from RC, I think, and put the warnings back. We got into an edit war, as he didn't want them there. I tried to tell he they have to stay, but he didn't listen. After going back and forth, he told me that reverting the removal of warnings from his userpage put me in violation of the 3RR rule, and then said editing without a username is against policy. Ha. Anyway, Titoxd somehow got involved and blocked him for 24 hours. After those 24 hours passed, he removed the warnings yet again, for around the seventh time. I had obviously removed his 'warnings' from my page, and he said that that meant he could remove others from his page. Confused? It gets worse. Going back through his talk page history, I found he's been warned ten times before for vandalising, personal attacks, and blanking sections of pages. I told him that, and he responded by saying that the only person who warned him was banned. He was, for a while. But he's not now.

But wait! The plot thickens. This is what I said to Titoxd last night. It is addressed to him and explains my confusion.

After he was given all those warnings and blocked he removed them all again. I said he should archive them if he doesn't want to see them anymore. So Irishguy added back the warnings. ER then responded to me by saying everything on his page is junk. I told him it would be put back regardless. He claimed that he is allowed to delete comments and that his block was for deleting things in unimportanat articles. He proceeded to respond to the question about his email before removing a warning again. So he removed the question he responded to and removed another warning. I told him once more that he shouldn't remove warnings. So he went into a rant about how he can delete whatever he wants, then said he could delete the warning he gave me about the 3RR and editing without registering. So what did he do? remove all the warnings on his page. He went on to fix up his rant and say he isn't vandalising. Irishguy restored it again, and ER promptly took them out again. Kungfuadam, aparently in RC, restored them. ER wrote himself a talk page policy while removing things again. I was upset he would consider my a vandal and thought because I removed his warnings he could remove all the others. So I ranted about it and have not yet recieved a response. I'm at a loss here. Since you were involved (and just so happen to be an admin) could you please help out? Thank you. 69.145.123.171 ^Hello! Monday, July 3, 2006, 22:38 (UTC)

That was yesterday. Today, I put all the warnings back, and told him that if he didn't stop, I'd come here. Not surprisingly, he removed the warnings and proceeded to say he's going to change his IP and start a new account. So far as I know resetting your router won't change your IP... Anyway, what do you all think? This is a basic summary of what happened; I'd flip through his contributions and talk page history to see all the warnings he removed and people he yelled at.

Man that took a long time to type.

69.145.123.171 ^Hello! Tuesday, July 4, 2006, 07:04 (UTC)

I agree the warnings should not be removed (they could be archived after a while). Resetting the router would get a new IP if the ISP uses dynamic IP, which, for example, most DSL and dial-up providers in the US do. If he is on good behavior in his new account and stops using the old one (and thus avoids sock puppetry) then it would be okay for him to "start over" without the bad history. Hey, you stand for rights for anons, he could stand for "right to start a new account".  :) —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-07-04 08:21Z

Can do. 69.145.123.171 ^Hello! Tuesday, July 4, 2006, 17:54 (UTC)

Well, except for this, which he added to his talk page a while ago, removing the warnings again.

:::::Yep, here I am with a new IP already...(see edits). No wonder I had so much difficulty talking with 69.145.123.171. The guy does not know what he is talking about. Him and Irish Guy are complete retards... with the continued reverts of the talk page. To what end? To what benefit? Do people think about what they are doing or saying before they do or say it? I can only presume that these are the people who do it the way they are told to do it. The ones that can't think for themselves. I guess I have to give up my nice login and go for something a little more anonymous.... ER MD 09:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

...Also, here's his new IP address, where he removes warnings and flames Irishguy. I'd put the warning back in, but I'm getting sick of this. I think an admin really needs to be involved. :( --69.145.123.171 18:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

And under his new IP, there's a personal attack, another personal attack, which was then removed, followed by this comment, and finally, his removal of another warning. --69.145.123.171 18:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm on my knees begging for help here. I'm gonna lose it with him if we don't do something. He is using different names and IP to troll and spread personal attacks. I'm afraid I lashed back because I'm sick of this.

Okay, he crossed the line... twice. I lost it. Go ahead, yell at me-I can't deal with sick people like this. >:( --69.145.123.171 20:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

evolution

I have asked that assertions of fact be cited. This is in accord with wikipedia policy. Rather than address the policy and why it is being ignored, my request has been removed from the evolution talk page for this article by user RJN. Please address. 84.146.238.126

This is an established user who does not want to be identified and is just engaging in disruptive behavior by placing {{fact}} all over the article because he/she does not support the assertion of evolution. Other editors have reverted this, but user failed to stop and discuss on talk page. —RJN 08:36, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

RJN is an established user who should know better than to ignore the most basic wikipedia policies all over the place in an attempt to hide blatant disregard for wikipedia policy regarding citation of facts and verifiability. 84.146.238.126

(Ahem). 3RR. SWAdair 08:53, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You were disrupting the process of that article. You were reverted by numorous users, not just me. I am neutral to whatever is going on in this article because I have no past or present involvement in editing evolution. Please do not drag me into this mess—I was only reverting your disruptive behavior. In addition, this user has been reverting way past the 3RR and has been changing IPs to circumvent the 3RR as well. —RJN 08:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The person using the User:IP 84.146.238.126 appears to be a creationist troll engaging in vandalism of the evolution article. He/she seems unwilling to actually read the article itself, which actually deals with his/her objections, and is instead inserting nonsense into the article without engaging in proper dialogue on the talk page. It is apparent from their knowledge of Wikipedia that they are an existing user who is masking their identity in order to engage in said vandalism. JF Mephisto 15:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

An idea

I'm bringing forth an idea brought up on WP:AIV. Should we have a separate page for bad usernames? A few times a day, we have people posting "xxxxxx is in violation of the username policy". The problem is that it's not really appropriate for AIV since it is not vandalism just to have a bad username. On the other hand, we probably need a board where non-admins can post usernames that possibly violate policy without having to clutter up AN or AN/I any more than we already do. It could be similar to AIV and WP:PAIN. Thoughts? --Woohookitty^(meow) 08:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for it; go ahead. Lectonar 08:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I, too, feel that this is a great idea. It would help me keep Wikipedia from being disrupted by various violators of WP:U. Ryulong 09:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. I see no reason why obvious WP:U violations shouldn't be posted on WP:AIV. They're even simpler than vandalism - with vandalism you have to check the contributions, whether the user has been warned, and then block, whereas with offensive usernames you just need to look at the name. The outcome is the same - quick check, then block. Where it's not sufficiently clear for an immediate block, the user can simply be asked politely to change his name and/or the account can be posted on WP:RFC/NAME. Further, those who create offensive usernames usually vandalise anyway, so WP:AIV is definitely where they belong.

There's just no need to have a separate board, making our processes even more complicated, and resulting in slower response time (as not all admins are going to immediately watchlist the new page). I'll add a note to WP:U saying where apparent violations should be posted, as it seems to be lacking there. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 09:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

What we're seeing right now are not "offensive usernames" being posted. Instead, we're getting alot of email usernames listed. Usually when offensive usernames are posted, the person is a vandal. But these are not vandals that I am talking about. This is what I am referring to. --Woohookitty^(meow) 10:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

People who use their email for thier username should get a polite note. They do not need to be blocked at all. I don't see why we would need a page where we can list user's like this. The people who are adding them to AIV shouldn't be doing so, they should simply advice them of our policies on thier talk page. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 15:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

And people who haven't ever contributed, as seems to be the case with Woohookitty's example, aren't usually worth bothering about unless it's likely that vandalism is forthcoming (i.e. deliberately offensive usernames and obvious sockpuppets- not email addresses). I would be more inclined to ask Dure to stop trawling for email address user accounts and suggest RC patrol instead, rather than setting up yet another new process. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 15:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair point. Mind you, it would probably be worth having at least a short summary on the Register page of what constitutes an acceptable username. Especially as it seems using an email address is a common newbie error, and move the "your account should not contain" section above the fields where the account name is entered. With luck we could stop most of the problems at source. Just zis Guy you know? 18:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense. But going back to the original question: creating an extra page would just create an additional backwater to check. Just like WP:AIV/TB2 isn't as well-known as AIV, and things there are usually handled by an admin on IRC. Non-vandalism usernames can be dealt with on the same manner than non-vandalism activity reports are. Titoxd^(?!?) 18:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the general gist that we don't need something new for this. If someone has a "bad" username and is making bad faith edits, or they have such an awful username that it must have been chosen in bad faith, then I would consider either case to be vandalism so go ahead and list on WP:AIV. However, if someone is making good faith edits but has inadvertently picked a "bad" username, blocking them will simply alienate a possible good contributor. Just mention it on their talk page, or, if you can't get through to them, list it on WP:RFC/NAME Either way, we don't need something new. JYolkowski // talk 23:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed: we don't need something new, but we might need to stop the problems by tweaking the registration screen per my suggestion above. Who do we talk to? Just zis Guy you know? 12:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

No one, just edit MediaWiki:Signupend. Titoxd^(?!?) 00:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The pen is mightier (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I want to apologize for this vandal; it was my live-in cousin, who apparently edits Wikipedia under another username (unknown to me) trying to get me blocked by collateral damage. I walked in on it, however, but not before he got blocked. I've undone the collateral-damage block (which is why I'm here; I wanted to mention that I was unblocking myself) and made sure that he spends the next month grounded from the internet. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

ZOMG ADMIN ABUSE! DESYSOP! DESYSOP! Oh, wait, nevermind... ;) Essjay (Talk • Connect) 08:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey, at least it's not because somebody thought I was a Plautus Satire sock. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:59, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Now imagine if you lived with Willy on Wheels. :D CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 09:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is User:A Man In Black on wheels... - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Apparently your cousin loves pokemon. Anyways, it's your cousin's fault, not yours.--WinHunter ^(talk) 11:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I still think an immidiately desysop is in order. RIGHT NOW. RIGHT.... NOW. Whenever. --Lord Deskana (talk) 11:42, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

And this Wikipedia moment has been brought to you by...the letter S. --Woohookitty^(meow) 14:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Aaron Walton

Please undelete this article, Aaron Walton.Alw4416 20:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

It was deleted per CSD A7, which states that non-notable people or music groups may be removed from Wikipedia. Naconkantari 20:17, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Please take a look at the deletion review log. Alw4416 20:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Then please wait for DRV to finish before posting here. Thanks Naconkantari 20:36, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Alw4416 appears to be perverting the DRV with sockpuppets... nice. - Merzbow 23:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Color/colour move without consensus

The article color has a long history of being edited, without consensus and against Wikipedia's policy on national varieties of English, to substitute "colour". This just gets reverted, but today someone did a page move from color to colour. If I understand correctly, this cannot be reversed except by an administrator (because of the redirect created). However, someone did step in and did a copy/paste revert, unfortunately breaking the edit history. Anyway, we now have colour redirecting to color, but there is also an article http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Col%D0%BEr&redirect=no, and I really don't know what that is doing there. It would be good if an administrator could resolve this mess (with color being the main article, with all of its history). I have marked color with an {{inuse}} tag in the hope that people won't add good faith edits in the mean time. If I could have fixed this, please let me know how! Notinasnaid 22:58, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

By the way, to get to Col%D0%BEr, go to Talk:color and follow the link that appears (apparently to talk:color again, but not), then click on Article. Notinasnaid 23:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

It should be fixed now. Naconkantari 23:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Personal attack/threat

Alright, I don't particularly like reporting such crap, because I prefer talking things out with users, however...have a look at the last few anonymous comments on my talk page, and if anyone believes action needs to be taken, please let me know what would be most appropriate. Note that although the edits are from anon IP, this is registered Wikipedia user. Thanks. Mindmatrix 23:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I've warned the IP concerned. If it re-occurs a short block would be appropriate. Unfortunately because this is an IP supplied by an ISP the user behind this will likely just come back on a different IP address if he's blocked. Gwernol 00:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

OK. If you look at the anon's last message, he linked to an image created by a registered user, for the sole purpose of attacking me (look at the image edit summary). I'm an admin, and I could delete the image, but I'd rather not use my privileges to affect a dispute in which I'm involved. Could somebody take care of it for me, either by deleting the image, or removing the reference to me, whichever you feel is most appropriate. Mindmatrix 00:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted the image and warned the uploader User:Hubert Derus. He also redirects his User page and Talk page to User:LoBo. I have no idea if it is a mixup trying to change name to Lobo or an attempt to circumvent blocks and messages. abakharev 02:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Ameri-CentricPatrol

In my opinion this user is bound for trouble He's making personal attacks and being uncivil, along with a NPOV username. --CFIF (talk to me) 00:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• I have given him the UsernameBlock abakharev 02:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Should we link to possibly-illegal sites?

Software cracking currently links to [link removed -Ral315], which supplies files that arguably (IANAL) violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Do we have a policy about whether to provide such links? If not, do we need one? Is this the right place to ask? Interrogatively yours, CWC(talk) 13:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In this specific case, the link does not improve the understanding of the subject. Rather, it provides an incoming link and free publicity to that site. Wikipedia:External links applies. More generally, I'd say that there may be cases where one wants to link sites that could be illegal, for example an article about one of these sites. (Liberatore, 2006). 13:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia generally operates under the laws of the United States, given that servers are hosted in Florida. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to try and interpret the DMCA, but in general, I don't find the link useful to the article. Ral315 (talk) 13:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for those helpful responses. I'll delete the link.

User:Paolo Liberatore's comment that "there may be cases where one wants to link sites that could be illegal, for example an article about one of these sites" strikes me as a pretty good guideline. Perhaps Wikipedia:External links should say something about this?

Thanks again, CWC(talk) 14:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed the other external link, which was to a site with instructions on how to crack Amiga games. They may be old, but it is still illegal. -- Kjkolb 17:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Highly inappropriate username

Someone should probably ban this user indefinitely. User:Urfuct. Batman2005 14:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism of La Salle College

Over the past weeks since the AfD success of Paul Lau, the article's contents merged to La Salle College#The first layman principal. Since then, there was continuous vandalism targeted at that single passage. I've requested a semi-protect at WP:RFP but was denied due to "inadequate vandalism activity". However, that inadequacy was, in fact, an illusion. Consider the edit history of the article for the past week:

1. (cur) (last) 2006-07-05 23:41:57 Deryck Chan (Talk | contribs) rv/v
2. (cur) (last) 2006-07-05 18:14:59 203.218.124.219 (Talk) vandalism
3. (cur) (last) 2006-07-05 15:01:32 Deryck Chan rv/v
4. (cur) (last) 2006-07-05 00:10:16 219.77.113.65 vandalism
5. ... (subsequent edits in "clean state")
6. (cur) (last) 2006-07-04 23:27:06 Deryck Chan rv/ previous vandalism
7. (cur) (last) 2006-07-03 17:13:07 Tawkerbot2 rv/ further vandalism
8. (cur) (last) 2006-07-03 17:13:01 82.110.221.72 further vandalism of another passage
9. ... (subsequent edits after the vandalism was done but not spotted)
10. (cur) (last) 2006-06-27 22:43:33 222.167.114.37 vandalism
11. (cur) (last) 2006-06-27 22:07:54 Misza13 rv/v
12. (cur) (last) 2006-06-27 22:06:59 218.103.166.54 vandalism

If checked carefully, since 27 June, the article has 188 hours in vandalized state but only 6 hours in clean state. Apparently this is a terrible ratio, meaning that for a random visitor coming to the article at any time, he has only 3% of chance to see a non-vandalized article.

I admit my fault for not being able to sweep the vandalism in that 7 days (27 June to 4 July) due to my short wikibreak, but even after I've come back, the ratio is still terrible. Since 4 July, there are only 5 hours that the article is clean but 20 hours that it is in vandalism. It still accounts for a 80% ratio for a random visitor to se a vandalized passage.

The problem is severe and was underestimated by a lot of people. I want some admins to take note of this and help me watch out the vandalism, or do a semi-protection. Thanks in advance. --Deryck C. 15:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason why this is needed. This seems like a content dispute. The anonymous users are removing a section that really pertains to the principal, and not so much to the college. While the blanking without comment may be disruptive, it's by no means vandalism, and certainly is not worthy of semiprotection. Ral315 (talk) 13:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion of that passage was agreed per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Lau. The anon editors also made no edit summary over all the edits (I suppose they're the same person or the same bunch of persons, because all the IPs come from Hong Kong ISPs). I'll seek negotiation when I revert next time. --Deryck C. 14:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Deleting libellous revisions

(Continued from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive115#Deleting libellous revisions)

It appears that that more (allegedly) libellous material was added to Michael Jackson (Anglican bishop) on 1 July [36]. An anonymous IP has again contacted me requesting this information be removed, so I'm forwarding that here. Cheers --Pak21 15:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:User wikipedia/Administrator

MatthewFenton (talk · contribs) is insisting that the use of Image:Admin mop.PNG on this userbox violates our policy on fair use images in userspace. I'm of the opinion that this is bollocks. I've just reverted it for the third time, so I could do with some confirmation that I haven't gone completely mad. — sjorford++ 16:39, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You're correct. The image is copyrighted, but not every copyrighted image we use is a "fair use" image. In this case, the image is copyrighted by Wikimedia (because of the Wikipedia logo), and is used with permission. Mangojuice^talk 17:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Mangojuice. Seems like a violation of WP:POINT by User:MatthewFenton. Naconkantari 17:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

On Template talk:User wikipedia/Administrator, I raised the point that this shouldn't even be an issue. Only one editor supports getting rid of the image while at least 7 have supported keeping the image or questioned why it was deleted. Seems like consensus to me. And I agree with the above comments that this seems like a case of WP:POINT.--Alabamaboy 17:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally like the Pope Clement VIII picture that Herostratus has on his userbox. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 17:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways

The case has closed.

• User:SPUI, User:JohnnyBGood, User:Rschen7754, and User:PHenry are placed on probation and may be banned by any admin in case of disruption of highways related articles.
• Consensus encouraged
• Until a formal naming convention policy regarding state highways is reached, no page shall be moved from one controversial name to another.
• JohnnyBGood and SPUI are warned to remain civil at all times.

For the Arbitration Committee. -- Drini 16:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Suspected banned user sockpuppet

I have strong suspicions that User:Beeboe is a sockpuppet of puppetmaster Hogeye, who has been banned repeatedly for ban evasion, POV editing, and various other violations of Wikipedia policy. My suspicions are based upon the fact that this week-old user has been editing articles that Hogeye was previously heavily involved in, making very similar changes. Further, this user has a surprising knowledge of the use of Wikipedia after only one week. Moreover, in recent days, Hogeye has been attempting to evade his ban by using anonymous proxies or by creating sockpuppet accounts.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone with the right tools could explore this in greater detail. Thanks. --AaronS 18:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFCU would be the right place to ask for a checkuser, WP:SSP for a non-checkuser sock investigation. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 08:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletions

FYI, CAT:CSD has eleventy billion pages in it, some of which have been there for 3+ hours. BigDT 19:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

En masse addition of Military History WikiProject tags

Grafikm fr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been using AWB en masse to add a Military History WikiProject tag to dozens of article talk pages. I stopped him when he had just finished off on articles starting with numbers and had gotten to "A6". I wanted to get invite further discussion on whether this is a good idea outside of the Military History WikiProject; hence why I am bringing this up here. It is my opinion that an automated en masse addition of what is essentially a WikiProject advertisement to hundreds of article talk pages, chosen solely because they occupy a military-related category, isn't a good idea. Some previous discussion is located at User talk:Cyde#Re: Spamming, but please keep new discussion here in this centralized location. --Cyde↔Weys 19:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

A few thoughts:

• WikiProjects, despite being informal, are generally regarded as a basic and quite legitimate form of editor collaboration within Wikipedia. Further, the use of talk page templates to advertise WikiProjects is a long-standing practice.
• The question of WikiProject scope is somewhat tangential to this. I cannot recall any limitation on the potential number of articles a WikiProject can deal with, and cannot fathom why such a restriction would be beneficial, in any case.
• Aside from advertising the existence of the WikiProject to editors in the applicable subject areas (which is quite important in its own right, since projects that fail to recruit editors effectively tend to wither and die in short order), the tags also serve to introduce articles into the bot-assisted article assessment program run under the guidance of the Wikipedia 1.0 project.
• The question of whether AWB is used seems rather unimportant, in my opinion. So long as the tagging itself is legitimate—and I'm not aware of any complaints in that regard—the use of a tool to make the admittedly monotonous task easier seems perfectly acceptable. Kirill Lokshin 19:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

To what Kirill said, I'll add a few things to explain:

I've just went through ~300 articles of a military-related category. Only 61 were tagged and 2 ignored because they were not military-related. Meaning there was ~240 articles in this category that were already tagged, through infinite pains, by hand, before that (and not by me). So it is a matter of being methodic: why .44 Magnum was tagged and .22 Long Rifle was not? What is the logic?

I'm not a bot and I'm not applying tags blindly. If an article is really out of scope, I don't tag it.

I do exactly the same job as was done before, only it goes 10 times faster. I really don't see what the problem is. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Unlike most of the project tags kicking around, these ones are preset to allow for notes about quality rating, completeness, importances, etc. The project is pretty active, and seems to have a good deal of article rating/validation/etc going on; it seems to me that this sort of thing is greatly helped by identifying and tagging articles for people to get to, since it allows category sorting, report generation, etc. (In many ways, it's probably better than slapping "This x-related article is a stub..." in the main namespace)

(Yes, indiscriminate bot-adding is a bad idea, but it's hard to distinguish between indiscriminate and eyballing-and-approving each time. Were any of the marked pages inappropriate?)

To my eyes, it's not "advertisment", it's infrastructure for the development of articles. Yes, it's not much use to start with, but people can't go and work on articles before someone's found them... It seems to be working fine; I say leave them to it. Shimgray | talk | 20:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It was not bot-adding. I check the title carefully and if needed, open the article. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Apologies - I was caught by an edit-conflict and hadn't seen your reply. Shimgray | talk | 20:12, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

(multiple edit conflicts) The problem is there are so many different WikiProjects out that if all of them went around tagging related articles en masse, the average article's talk page would be flooded with half a dozen advertisements for various WikiProjects. Look at the huge list of WikiProjects here and tell me it wouldn't be a bad thing if even 10% of them went around tagging all articles that were possibly related. It's just not a good idea. Quite literally it is spamming namespace 1. --Cyde↔Weys 20:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Most of the WikiProjects on that list don't use tags. Most of them are also quite catatonic. Care to guess at the relationship between the two? ;-)

(This aside from the fact that even double-tagging tends to be rare, and is becoming increasingly rare as smaller WikiProjects are being absorbed into larger ones. I don't believe I've ever seen a talk page with more than two WikiProject tags on it.) Kirill Lokshin 20:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The "spamming" problem from having five or six tags seems more due to the size and style of the templates. If this *does* become an issue, reformatting the project tags might prove a good idea... but this is useful infrastructure, and people do seem to be using it to build an encylopedia. So why make their lives harder for something that isn't a problem yet? Shimgray | talk | 20:12, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• The addition of the tags seems proper to me. This is a very active project and the scope of the project seems to be all pages that have a military topic. As such, then all these articles should probably be tagged as such. I do note, however, that looking into the far future, we may have problems with articles tagged by a dozen different wikiprojects. (E.g. As it stands today, a military war-ship made by a prominant manufacturer in Texas could conceivably be tagged by wikiprojects on Military, Ships and Texas. How many more wikiprojects might the same ship fall into next year or ten years from now?) Just the size of the cumulative talk page tags could theoretically be a problem. My opinion is that this hypothetical problem is not serious enough to attempt to solve ahead of time before it actually exists. Let's let these projects grow and tag articles and see what happens. Johntex\^talk 20:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • "The scope of the project seems to be all pages that have a military topic" -- hrmm, yes, because they're defining their own scope. What happens when WikiProject United States comes through, with an acknowledged scope of the United States, and tries to tag hundreds of thousands of articles? I just don't see why it is necessary that every single article in the encyclopedia dealing with military history (we must have over 10K such articles) needs to have a tag advertising this WikiProject. --Cyde↔Weys 20:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
    • For assessement purposes for instance. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
      • How about they put the tag on once it's actually assessed, rather than putting up thousands of these tags that will doubtless remain blank (and useless) for months? --Cyde↔Weys 20:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
        • They won't get assessed until somebody knows they exist (usually not the people with enough time to do mass-tagging, either). Category:Unassessed military history articles has been getting reduced in size quite consistently. Kirill Lokshin 20:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
    • The United States WikiProject has a large number of child projects (many of which do tag things); it's likely that a most-specific-project tagging rule would be adopted by them should they desire to add tags. (In any case, creating current restrictions based on hypothetical problems seems somewhat questionable.) Kirill Lokshin 20:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Might we think of a better infrastructure than having each WikiProject tag each article they have identified as being somewhat related to their topic area? This just doesn't scale well at all. That's the reason I brought this here ... for community review. I still don't think that having WikiProjects tag each article they're even tangentially related to provides enough benefits to outweigh the signal to noise decrease inherent in adding more colored boxes to the top of talk pages (once it gets past two, does anyone even read them?). I've thought this for a long while and haven't said anything, but when I ran across the massive addition of tags today, I felt like I had to say something. Hopefully we can come up with a better system. Why not have all of the article assessment ratings on a centralized page? Why should it all be scattered around on individual articles? WikiProjects are project-space stuff ... can't they do it in project space and project talk space rather than spreading their colored boxes all across article talk space? --Cyde↔Weys 20:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It was tried. It really doesn't scale for any more than a few hundred articles. Kirill Lokshin 20:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at Talk:Joseph_Stalin for instance to see that there are alredy such cases of pages having a lot of templates. And people live with it. Don't know where the problem is... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll point out that nobody has really offered an argument against the fact that advertising relevant WikiProjects—even in the absence of any other purpose for the tags—is a very useful thing (assuming that you like having active WikiProjects around, obviously). WikiProjects that fail to recruit editors die; there's simply no way around that fact. That's why the idea of talk-page tags was developed in the first place. Kirill Lokshin 20:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

My thoughts on the subject - it wouldn't be a horrible idea to restrict the WikiProject tags to those articles where either (a) your project makes up a substantial portion of the editors of the article, (b) the article is obviously inextricably linked to your project (eg WP:NFL and National Football League), or (c) the article is an abandoned stub or short article relevant to your project that you intend to improve. There was one case a few weeks back with Talk:Calvary Chapel and Wikipedia:WikiProject Charismatic Christianity. The issue more or less dropped because it was really just two of us arguing and the the project basically has such a broad definition of what "Charismatic Christianity" is that if you have ever met a Charismatic, you probably qualify ... it really wasn't worth it to me to continue debating the issue. Still, I would use this as an example of something that should NOT be tagged. Nobody from Wikipedia:WikiProject Charismatic Christianity has contributed to the article itself. The link between the two is tenuous (Chuck Smith was once involved in a charismatic movement, therefore Calvary Chapel must be a charismatic church, even though they never self-identify as such). At any rate, this is more along the lines of a policy proposal than an administrative issue, but I would definitely suggest restricting tagging in some fashion. If nobody from your project is going to touch the thing, it doesn't need to be tagged as belonging to them. BigDT 20:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that might be more of an issue with the particular WikiProject you mention having a somewhat unusual (or controversial?) scope. Is it your impression that it's a more widespread issue? Kirill Lokshin 20:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a good question. Looking at the list, there aren't that many where inclusion is overly debatable. Most of the ones that could be contentious (for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Evolutionary biology, if they wanted to be annoying, could tag every living thing saying, "well, it evolved didn't it") seem to exercise restraint. This is one I imagine could get really annoying really fast if they did article tagging. So really, the answer is probably no, I don't see a widespread problem now ... but it could be and, as we have another incident here, some standards wouldn't be a bad thing. BigDT 21:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that there are two opposing risks to allowing projects like MILHIST to tag the approximately 11,000 relevant pages they estimate exist. If this is permitted, there is a risk that some pages might eventually have several tags from several projects. If not, it's likely that more pages will be orphaned than if not. I tend to think that allowing an active project like MILHIST to tag thousands of pages will do more good than harm, although maybe there needs to be some procedure to remove tags from dead projects. A lot of projects are doing great work, and MILHIST is one of them. TheronJ 20:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

A way to remove dead projects in general might be helpful; the only way I've seen any disappear is by getting absorbed by a more active project. Kirill Lokshin 20:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In case of WPMILHIST, we're in cases (b) or (c) in 99% of the articles. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I think these wikiproject tags are almost always useless and almost always harmless; if it makes people happy to add them, so be it. But I would like to see the people who design the templates trying to make them as small as possible- no pictures, and directions to the project page rather than using the template to add lists to every talk page. Henry^Flower 21:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The design of the template is different story - if a page is tagged, the initial template can be changed at will afterwards... :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• Cyde, the assessments are centralized. You can try having a look at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Military history articles by quality. However, a system where there isn't at least some sort of distributed rating will fail to work, as prior experience has showed the WP:1.0 and WP:WVWP projects. It is impossible to edit a page with 10,000 entries, so that's why you have a bot filling them out automatically. If there are several WikiProjects that could have "jurisdiction" over an article, And yes, Cyde, I really don't see a problem with all of them tagging the article (which won't happen, because not all WikiProjects tag pages, and not all WikiProjects are even active). More eyes looking at one article → better article. If it truly annoys you, you can always turn off the coffee roll templates on your personal CSS. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Ooh, is there a standard div id I can use to turn off all WikiProject notices? Granted, this just solves the problem for me personally, and not for anyone else out there who doesn't know how to do it, but I might as well solve one problem. --Cyde↔Weys 23:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
    • They all currently use class="messagebox standard-talk"; that's the same as all the other talk page banners ({{featured}} and so forth). I suppose we could introduce a distinct class just for the project notices, if people want to turn only those off. Kirill Lokshin 00:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
      • It's a good idea to standardize on a separate one for WikiProject banners, methinks. I'd want to hide WikiProject banners but not the usual talk page stuff. --Cyde↔Weys 00:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
        • I was thinking of going through with a bot and giving every header in Category:Article talk header templates an id of "t_Administrators%27_noticeboard", as honestly I hate seeing all of them. Adding a class="...wikiproject" or such (even if it doesn't have a class defined by default) would be useful too. Kotepho 05:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I was a bit surprised the first time I saw these templates, but I like the idea about rating articles on both quality and importance. True, many articles have only been tagged and not rated yet, but a large number of articles have already been rated. Valentinian ^(talk) 23:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• This discussion seems to be related to Wikipedia:Avoid using WikiProject talk page templates. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • If it's just about talk page color, I can ignore articles with an empty talk page. How's that? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it would seem that no one is really against this tagging, or am I missing something? :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is the correct venue for this discussion; if there really is disagreement about this practice we should find a better venue for discussion and seeking consensus. That said:

• WikiProjects do some great work and help foster community. I'd be very reluctant to impose any restrictions on them unless absolutely necessary. I don't see any such necessity right now.
• I'd fully support using a special div type for WikiProject banners. It's never occured to me before, but if some folks don't like seeing those tags then I have no objection to making those editors happier by making such a simple change.
• WikiProject banners are essential for Mathbot-based article assessment, as pointed out above.
• I believe the banners are useful to WikiProjects and therefore to Wikipedia in other ways, which I won't list here.
• "Turf wars" and which articles "belong" to which WikiProjects and how this is determined are some things which might at some point need to be talked about, but not here. We've (WP:BEATLES) had a few disagreements in the past and some of our articles are also tagged by the Albums and Films WikiProjects and probably others. However, different Projects tagging the same article doesn't even break the Wikipedia 1.0 assessment, especially for "article importance" because the importance is importance within the WikiProject, and then the enyclopedic importance is assessed by also factoring in the importance of that Project. Having multiple gradings therefore doesn't break the system at all. --kingboyk 18:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Freakofnurture brought up an interesting point on IRC. Whether or not the talk page tab at the top of the page is red is useful feedback to the reader. Oftentimes I find myself wanting to know if a page has any discussion on it; if the tab is red, I don't even have to load a separate page. However, if all of these articles are going to be tagged en masse with this WikiProject banner, then none of the tabs will be red any longer, and some reader feedback will be lost. Also, I question the value of putting a banner on a page with so little traffic/interest that it doesn't even exist. What do you guys think about only putting the banner on talk pages that already exist, and not creating the ones from scratch that don't? --Cyde↔Weys 20:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

See what I suggested above :) (18:21 UTC). -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that sounds acceptable then. Since no one else seems to be objecting I think I'll bow out. --Cyde↔Weys 20:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, there would be three main reasons why we would prefer the banner even on empty talk pages:

• The article rating component of the tags applies regardless of whether there's any other discussion going on.
• Many of these pages are extremely low-traffic in terms of actually having discussion (some manage to make it up to FA status without any comments there). The banners still provide useful links for both the editors of those pages and other people (who are often more likely to get assistance with the article from the project than merely by posting to an empty talk page.
• This will require a dedicated effort of trying to keep track of newly created talk pages so that we can tag them, rather than tagging everything in one go.

Whether you find any of these arguments convincing is, of course, up to you. Kirill Lokshin 20:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Indeed. The reasons for such taggings seem to heavily outweigh the reasons against (one or two folks don't want to load a talk page to find just a WikiProject banner). I reiterate that since this is currently the way things are done, and we're quite deep into Wikipedia 1.0 assessment now, this isn't the correct forum either. If this is a genuine issue affecting many editors (and I don't think it is) let's have a policy debate. --kingboyk 20:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The article rating component only applies if you're actually rating the page. I don't see the point of turning a red talk page blue with an empty rating slot. Yes, if you want to take the time to also make an assessment of the page then it's a different situation. Also, I can't believe that an article has made it to featured status with a red talk page. Can you give me any examples? I still don't think the questionable benefits of having a WikiProject banner on a previously nonexistent talk page outweigh the loss of feedback provided by that talk page's nonexistence. --Cyde↔Weys 20:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, aside from the project banner and the fac template, obviously. In any case, if you want an example, Italian War of 1521 had three tags and not a single word of actual commentary on its talk page when it was featured; does that count? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 20:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Hrrmmm ... I didn't think such a page existed. Anyway, nice article. I shall read it soon. --Cyde↔Weys 20:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 21:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Then you don't (or more likely don't want to) understand the assessment system (and indeed the WikiProject system). Knowing which articles a Project is watching over, and which are unassessed, is an important part of how the average WikiProject operates. This is the way things are done (and for the benefit of the wider Project); and admin action isn't going to stop it. Make a policy debate out of if you don't like it (that's an invitation not a threat :) but please don't, we have enough to do with W1.0 assessments), but for now it's status quo and c'est la vie. --kingboyk 20:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Edit --kingboyk 20:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Please, let's not have any "not-threats" here either. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 20:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Happy now? :) --kingboyk 20:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I know how the assessment system works (when the assessment is left blank it's put into a "to be assessed" category, right?). I just don't think it's worthwhile creating talk pages out of nothing to put them into a blank category. You could save yourself a lot of page edits if you just compiled a simple list of pages to be assessed. --Cyde↔Weys 20:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I do find it useful. Every now and then, a lonely article pops out into Category:Unassessed hurricane articles, and that is picked up on Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Tropical cyclone articles by quality log (and the summary), so I know a new article was created, so I can go assess it. So, useless to one doesn't mean useless to all. Titoxd^(?!?) 21:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

(Sorry, me again) Actually, I would like to add that prior to the W1.0 assessments scheme I would, in the case of very large Projects, agreed to you. I remember creating new articles on albums and shortly afterwards a {{Album}} template would appear saying "this is part of WikiProject Albums". I remember thinking at the time "who the hell are they, why are they taking credit for work they had no part in, and what use does that tag serve appearing on thousands of talk pages?". I do believe that the W1.0 assessments changes things considerably, however. --kingboyk 20:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind having these ratings for every article but I don't see why they should have to get there through a single very active project - the importance and quality of an article aren't tied to a particular project. And, as others have mentioned, things are being tagged that seem rather marginally related to military history - I noticed Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum was tagged. It could just as well get a tag from a WikiProject on Norway, or on the Middle Ages or on literature. Couldn't we just have one generic talk page template for people who want to rate articles for quality and importance? We could still have a parameter allowing us to specify individual projects or "task forces" that could help with the article. Haukur 21:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Quality: perhaps. But importance, at least the way it's set up, varies from project to project. Something very important within the topic of "Norway" might not be that important within the topic of "Middle Ages", and vice versa. And there are also other things like project peer reviews/collaborations/etc. being listed in these tags. I think that trying to combine them all would be far too chaotic to bother (not to mention resulting in a template that would freeze the database anytime it was edited). Kirill Lokshin 21:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I am supposed to be on wikibreak, and about to be away from the computer for a week, but I thought I should chime in, since I wrote a bot (User:WatchlistBot) to maintain a watchlist for a project. I was inspired by Wikipedia:WikiProject Hawaii, and used it for Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics. The bot can also tag all articles in a category as belonging to a project. This feature worked well for the main Numismatics articles (not Exonumia), but it ran into trouble in the Exonumia directories so I'm not using that feature now. I started this because I wanted to be able to watch what was happening in the Numismatics project, and had no awareness of 1.0. You can see the watchlist if you want. The {{Numismaticnotice}} does not include a rating, but I find it useful anyway. As a new user, I had no idea that there was anything to Wikipedia beyond the articles and talk pages until I followed a link in a template. Ingrid 22:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use image on a user page

See User:MulderandScully, which has Image:Xf promotional ftf.jpg on it. I don't think this user is any friend of administrators, as seen by this diff. And actually, that whole thread on User talk:Jimbo Wales#Tolerance of Criticism Continued seems like the work of... no, I can't say it. I'm not supposed to say it. Just deal with the fair use image on a user page. --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 23:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Removed (he also had one on his talk page). --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Potty Time

I think this user has an inappropriate username. Is that right? Voortle 00:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's that bad. We have this page: Shit. Tobyk777 05:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm borderline on it, but I will not block it. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

If you look at Wikipedia:Username, it could be inappropriate as "...it alludes to excretory functions of the body.."; you left a message on the user's talk page, let's see how it goes. Lectonar 05:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Somehow I doubt that they're going to be the next great admin, though. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 15:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It was a puppet show aired in the UK, hosted by Michael Bentine. See Michael Bentine's Potty Time. Just zis Guy you know? 22:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

SEO spam

From my Talk page:

User:HayMeadows

You nominated a pair of articles by User:HayMeadows to AFD today with an "is there an echo here"? type comment on the second.

http://www.haymeadows.com/links/seo-link-exchange.htm Demonstrates that there is a company by that name involved in search engine optimization. One of the two companies you AFD nominated is specifically listed as an SEO client. I'm not sure what more to do, so I'm alerting you. GRBerry 03:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

As you'll see form the contribs of HayMeadows (talk · contribs) this is pretty transparent stuff, but I'm wondering whether any less blatant examples have crept in. Anyone who wants to take a look is welcome. Just zis Guy you know? 06:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Please delete 'Boss Hoss' article

The Boss Hoss article was nominated for deletion and then deleted. The user Tirdun created it again.

Please delete it per the AfD discussion. --Stellis 07:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Done, and on my watch list. --ajn (talk) 07:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Mine as well. --mboverload@ 10:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Btw, next time if you see such recreation of content you can simply tag it with {{db-g4}} and no need to post in WP:AN. --WinHunter ^(talk) 11:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Stopping your vandalism

Per Wikipedia:Username, is there a "rough consensus" that this is an inappropriate username? Snottygobble 12:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

As you can see in contribs, only a trolling account to harass an admin. I support. --mboverload@ 12:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Already indefblocked by Andrew Norman. Syrthiss 12:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty clear who this "new" user is. --ajn (talk) 12:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

He has now been blocked. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 12:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Admin without email enabled

Karada does not have an email address enabled, even though all admins, especially those involved in blocking users (as Karada is [37]), should be contactable outside Wikipedia. From what I've seen an RFA is extremely unlikely to succeed if the candidate does not have a valid email address. I have asked Karada twice on his talk page to enable his email or explain why he hasn't, but he hasn't yet responded (he responded to my first query on the 26th June which regarded a blocked user, but did not address the question of his email). I've checked his contributions and he has edited since I asked him last. Can someone please reinforce my request? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 13:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to stick my neck on the line and say that I strongly disagree with this "requirement". If s/he has their email turned off, that's their business; not least because replying reveals one's own email address. I can't say I've received a single adminship-related email ever which I got any value out of reading and which couldn't have been discussed here. Furthermore, if it's needed for appealing against a block that can be done on the blocked user's talk page. (I'm expecting a flame or two now, so let me just point out my email is enabled, albeit reluctantly). --kingboyk 13:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

There is also unblock-en-l. Jude (talk) 13:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There's nothing wrong with enabling email. When I get an email from someone who I'd prefer not to have my address in possession, I simply reply to that person's talk page. --Deathphoenix ʕ 13:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree, kingboyk. I think that there are some situations and issues that need to be discussed off the site. Read Wikipedia Review and the similar sites and you see that trolls and banned users love to see us talk about them. Also a quick direct conversation between two users, admins or editors, can be much more effecive than a massive discussion. FloNight ^talk 13:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The user talk pages of blocked users are sometimes protected, e.g. due to abuse of {{unblock}}, and that just leaves email. I'm not familiar with the mailing lists, but I distrust all off-wiki public fora, including mailing lists and IRC, given the Blu Aardvark fiasco et al. The point is that you should be able to contact the same admin that blocked you directly. If revealing your email address bothers you, just get a free one and use that. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 14:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I use a gmail address for Wikipedia, which strips my IP from the header, and have set it to only display my username as the sender (not my real name). So, it's no big deal if someone sees my email address. -Kmf164 (talk contribs) 19:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no requirement that an admin have an available email address, nor should there be. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
mboverload@ chimes in that he has email, AIM, and IRC "enabled"

user:Logologist

I am writing due to inappropriate sock puppeteer user:Logologist, which was identified as such in June 23 . This user should get punishment because:

1. He used 3 sock puppet accounts. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=60172140&oldid=60171126
2. He used these 3 sock puppet accounts (together with his main one) in voting on very sensitive issue – naming the main article of ruler: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_II_Jagie%C5%82%C5%82o/Archive_5#Sockpuppetry
3. Violate "one person, one vote" principle casting 4 voices: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_II_Jagie%C5%82%C5%82o/Archive_5#request_for_move
4. Wikipedia policy on sock puppetry during the vote is strict: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Voting
5. Due to his united votes as ”oppose” consensus was not reached on article naming , if not these 3 votes the consensus could been reached than.
6. Due to his voting, the weeks spent on talks gone in rubbish. M.K. 14:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The sockpuppets were blocked and their votes discounted. The user hasn't edited for three weeks. There is no need for any further "punishment". Haukur 14:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe his voices were not discounted [38] (vote ended in June 13, he was identified in June 23). Only blocking sock puppets is an encouragement to other misconducts (not necessary by this user), because there was no outcome to the puppets master. But if you say its ok... M.K. 15:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• Please take the matter to WP:SSP. Iolakana|^T 15:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

My block of User:Michael Dorosh

I have revoked the editing priveleges for this account after this edit following clear instructions in both that article's edit summary history and on the article Talk page that unfree image cleanup should not be reverted. Per User:Jimbo Wales' encouragement to be strict about fair use abuse, this account should remain blocked until the user commits to not interfering with unfree image cleanup. One such a commitment is received, any admin should return editing priveleges immediately. I am cross-posting this here for review and to be clear that any admin considering lifting this block after receiving such a commitment should not hesitate to do so. Jkelly 18:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You did the right thing, in my view, and I note that he has now given his commitment and been unblocked, so the whole thing was cleared up in just a few minutes. AnnH ♫ 18:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You shouldn't have blocked him over this. First off, the photo is a copyrighted by the Canadian government and is the official picture of the Canadian prime minister. A strong claim could have been made that the use of this photo to illustrate an article about the prime minister is valid under fair use. In short, this wasn't a nonsense fair use claim and you should not have blocked the user for disagreeing with you over it. In addition, I find it distaste that you blocked an editor over what was an editorial dispute you were involved in. You should have gotten another admin to do that.--Alabamaboy 18:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be confused about two things here. The first is that I didn't block someone for a lousy fair use claim. I blocked an account that was replacing a free image with an unfree one. The strongest fair use claim in the world wouldn't matter -- we don't use unfree content when we have free, reuable content. The second point is that there was an editorial dispute. My first edit was to revert back to the free image -- I'm not involved in any sort of "editorial dispute", unless enforcing Wikipedia:Image use policy and our fair use criteria is now an editorial decision. Jkelly 19:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the (admittedly not very applicable in this particular case) general point that determining whether a free image adequately replaces a fair-use one is, in some respect, an editorial decision, I am uncomfortable with the fact that we're handing out indefinite blocks to editors in good standing without even a warning. Unless the editor is actually refusing to follow image policy when asked to do so, there is no need for an indefinite block to be imposed. Indeed, in a situation like the above where the violation is very limited in scope (a single image on a single article) and the editor is not causing any substantial damage, I am unconvinced that we need apply a block at all before asking/warning/instructing them as to the relevant policy. Kirill Lokshin 19:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is the Talk page note I left. Assuming that is insufficient warning that reverting image cleanup is not okay, what would you suggest? What is better in these situations? Revert-warring, page protection, or blocking? Jkelly 19:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Leaving the same request you did on the editor's talk page, but without imposing a block; there's always time for that if they refuse. Kirill Lokshin 19:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

We should all note – in general, and not just specific to this situation – that there is a distinction between an indefinite block and a permanent one. While both are implemented the same way technically, they can be handled very differently in practice. A permanent block is imposed on an editor who has exhausted the community's patience or by decision of the ArbCom; such a block is accompanied by the sentiment 'Good riddance, you're not welcome back here' (if not those precise words). Other indefinite blocks may be placed to mean 'You're doing something that you shouldn't be doing, after you've been asked to stop. Once you agree to stop, you'll be unblocked; I had to block you to get your attention.' Such blocks are meant to be lifted quickly and by any admin as soon as – but not before – the appropriate condition has been met. Particularly since we have the {{unblock}} template, such 'indefinite' blocks should represent a small inconvenience for the blocked editor. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Except that such subtle semantic games are rarely a consolation to the target of the block, particularly when we use overly formalistic languaged like "revoked the editing priveleges for this account".

In general, requests and suggestions should be preferred to warnings, which should be preferred to blocks; not because it's any more difficult to remove blocks from a technical standpoint, but because of the effect of harsher measures on (usually) well-meaning volunteer editors. Kirill Lokshin 20:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I actually agree with you – and with Jkelly's revised opinion – that the block was hasty in this case. But I don't think that any 'subtle semantic games' are being played here. Jkelly provided clear conditions for the lifting of the block, and was clearly monitoring the situation—Jkelly attempted an unblock eight minutes after Michael Dorosh agreed to abide by the policy. (I also applaud Jkelly's decision to post a notice on this page, so that other admins could review the situation.) If we're going to talk about the language editors use, I'd say that the intent and meaning of Jkelly's whole comment – particularly the part that reads "One such a commitment is received, any admin should return editing priveleges immediately." – are clear. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand why you replaced the image and I agree it was the right move (assuming a better quality version of the pic can be found). The problem is that User:Michael Dorosh made what appeared to be a good-faith edit, reverting the image for a better looking one which had a valid claim at being fair use. Since you originally replaced that image, you were free to revert his edit and explain to him why he shouldn't have done that. Blocking an editor for one apparently good-faith revert, especially when the editor reverted your own edit, is not justified. If User:Michael Dorosh had reverted that image over and over, the block may have been justified but it would still have been better for another admin to block him since you were involved in the edit in question. Best, --Alabamaboy 19:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This is still not the correct sequence of events. User:Thivierr was the one who was doing image cleanup here. Thivierr was then reverted, reverted back, and posted at Wikimedia:Media copyright questions asking if they were confused about image policy. That's how the matter came to my attention. I reverted back to the free image, and left a strongly-worded note at Talk:Stephen Harper. Your argument seems to be based on the idea that I have some sort of personal investment or conflict of interest here. That's not the case. Jkelly 19:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed that User:Michael Dorosh is complaining on his talk page about still being blocked despite agreeing not to revert that image again. I thought his block was lifted.--Alabamaboy 19:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I've cleared the remaining autoblock now. Kirill Lokshin 19:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This was a clear over-reaction and a violation of WP:BLOCK. Please engage in discussions with user before issuing blocks. Joelito (talk) 19:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. There was discussion. Assume good faith towards admins, please. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Unrelated to the rightness or wrongness of anything, I hope that a better, useable picture can be found. This one is truly terrible (it is not the fault of the photographer, the picture was taken during a speech, which is bad enough for a portrait, and then it was cropped to show just the head). As an interim measure, the picture could be made far better with some simple editing (use the original and then recrop, of course). We should encourage this to be done before uploading the picture, if we don't already. :-) -- Kjkolb 19:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree. After all, this is the prime minister of Canada. If someone had replaced Bush's official picture with something like this people would think it was vandalism. While we should not use non-free images when a free image is available, if the free image is of horrible quality then (perhaps) the non-free image has a decent claim to still being used under fair use (notice I said perhaps, I'm still not sure on this).--Alabamaboy 19:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean to suggest that the original picture should be used, just that a freely useable picture should be found that is better than the current one. I suppose if there was a valid fair use claim that it would be preferable to use the original, but I don't know at what point quality is so bad that it cannot be considered an alternative freely available picture, or if there is no such point. I guess that we should be grateful that it isn't a child's drawing. ;-) -- Kjkolb 19:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Jkelly, I'm glad to hear that you don't have an editorial stake in this article, although the issue of which image to use does appear to be an editorial decision and since you edited the article to use one image that seemed to me to have involved you in the dispute over the image. I still believe, though, that there was no need to block the editor over this one revert. Simply explaining the situation to him would have been enough. After all, we block people for a pattern of abuse after giving said editors sufficient warnings. Best, --Alabamaboy 19:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that he should have been warned first. I don't know if it is true in this case, but people frequently don't read edit summaries or the talk page before editing or reverting. Also, if he was aware of the message(s), he may have thought that he had a legitimate fair use claim when he reverted. That makes it a disagreement over whether an image is fair use and not a willful violation of policy (deliberately using an unfree image that is not fair use). -- Kjkolb 19:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

No "fair use" claim justifies replacing freely-licensed content. See Wikipedia:Fair use criteria for more details. This is perhaps where some confusion lies. Jkelly 19:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

There was a discussion here where it was argued that up to date information was more important than license. Also, here was argued that, if the free image was not "suitable", a fair image should be use instead. Useful reading. -- ReyBrujo 20:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It has also been argued that we should get rid of WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR. Jkelly 20:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I was referring to the conclusion both talk reached, not whether the discussions had any valid point for changing the policy. Discussion is good, especially in a topic that is easily "abuseable" by a casual user who happens to be browsing around. -- ReyBrujo 20:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

That there is confusion is the point and we should consider that users may not have read things like Wikipedia:Fair use criteria. I am not arguing that the content should have not been removed. I am arguing that an indefinite block without warning was a bad idea. A user may think that he or she is correct in replacing poor quality free content with high quality unfree content that he or she thinks it can be used under fair use. It does not matter if the content cannot be used under fair use because that only tells us that the content should be removed. It does not tell us whether an indefinite block without warning was the correct thing to do because that depends on the user's intentions, not whether they are right or wrong about a fair use claim or a policy. That is why I think a block without any warning, especially an indefinite block, is a bad idea in this type of case. -- Kjkolb 20:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Consensus does seem to be that a note at the article Talk page was insufficient warning that blocks might happen. I'd like to invite further discussion about whether page protection or revert warring are better alterantives. I'm concerned that there seems to remain some confusion about whether or not reverting unfree image cleanup is some kind of individual judgement call, and that we should treat replacing freely-licensed content with unfree content casually. All of that said, if consensus is that blocks shouldn't happen without significantly more warning, I'll commit to not blocking for image use violations without a warning on the user's talk page, and consider this to be a bad block on my part. Jkelly 19:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that part of the issue is confusion over the meaning of "alternative" in the criteria; this can be interpreted as meaning either any free image, or only a free image that is a suitable replacement within the context of the article. In other words, it may be unclear whether we should prefer free images even where there are concerns that their quality is so deficient as to make them useless; or whether we can temporarily retain the fair-use images (in places where we have legitimate claims for such, obviously) until a suitable free image can be obtained. Kirill Lokshin 19:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Links to racist sites & anti-Islamic POV

The article on Inayat Bunglawala was edited by an anonymous user, who inserted links to the far-right, racist British National Party and included POV statements like "claims to be a moderate but revealed himself to be a born jihadist." It also included unsubstantiated claims of death threats made by Bunglawala to the anti-Islamic far-right weblog Little Green Footballs, which have not, as far as I'm aware, been discussed anywhere but on the aforementioned weblog.

I request that the administrators look over the edit history of the article, investigate the links to the British National Party and Little Green Footballs, and take appropriate action against the user: 24.79.43.137.

JF Mephisto 18:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks to me like simply inputting information that isn't reputably sourced. As offensive as you may find it, in my (non-admin) opinion, its no worse than any other article being edited with nonverifiable content and this user shouldn't be punished more strictly simply because what he input was pov and sourced to a weblog, or deemed anti-islamic. Batman2005 19:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, logging in as anonymous user to input links to racist organisations (namely the British National Party, which has leaders convicted of race-related offences as well as links to Holocaust denial and violent groups) in order to support Islamophobic comments, I believe, is significantly more than just using "nonverifiable content." It's vandalism and abuse. JF Mephisto 21:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I still don't understand though. In this edit [39] Zeq inserted initially the information that you're reporting 24.79.43.137 for. It was subsequently deleted and readded by several users on quite a few occasions. You're claiming that 24.79.43.137 "logged in from an anonymous user to input links to racist organizations" is not in keeping with assuming good faith. You'll notice here [40] that the page was blanked by 81.151.251.74 and then the user you are claiming is pushing an anti-islamic pov (24.79.43.137) merely reverted the page [41] blanking without adding anything that was not present before the blanking. The only vandalism I see on this page is the intentional blanking of all content by 81.151.251.74 which is covered on the admin noticeboard against simple vandalism. What you have here is a content dispute between yourself and several other users. It should be discussed on the talkpage civily and all users should try to work towards a consensus on the content of the article. As is now, there is nothing that 24.79.43.137 has done on that page that warrants any action by an admin. The IP user was reverting the blanking of a page, not pushing his/her own agenda. Batman2005 22:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

SIDE NOTE in this edit JF Mephisto, the user who intiated this report, added the semi-protection tag to the article. JF Mephisto is not an admin and does not possess the necessary permissions to protect/unprotect pages. I left a message on his talk page about falsely representing adminship. Batman2005 19:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Hipcrime

Hipcrime is a page that seems to be repeatedly subject to image vandalism. The changes are repeatedly reverted and then the reverts are reverted by the vandal. The reverts usually come from open proxies so a vandalism alert template is useless. The page was semi=protected but an admin removed it a while ago. I'd like to request that the semi-protection be reinstated. Duskglow 20:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Montanism

This article is undergoing an edit war - just keeping under the 3RR. Can someone do something else to solve it? Rmhermen 23:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I have contributed to this article, as have a number of quality editors... The other person reverting, has made no contributions to Montanism whatsoever, but just waded in out of nowhere a couple days ago, and announced that he says the article is no longer "allowed" to start off with "Second century AD" - but rather, must say only "Second century" - leaving the reader to figure out from the context that it is AD and not BC. He has made all kinds of ultimatums to me, including on my talk page, and when I don't answer all of his petty arguments quickly enough or to his satisfation (I really have several much more important tasks than minor details like this), he starts reverting again. Unfortunately, none of the other actual contributors to the article beside myself seem to have noticed, perhaps they are all on vacation this summer. I would love to see what some of the other people who actually wrote the article think about this. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia (and this article in particular) is not of your property. This means that a right contribution made by anyone has the same value as your long-standing contributions. Your complaint, however, shows the way you work. You immediately revert my edits, but "have several much more important tasks than minor details like" answering my comments. Only recently, and after reverting your reverts, I got some kind of attention from you. You gave your points, I countered them (I would say I showed they were wrong or of lesser importance, but this is POV) and you simply told me to wait for "other people who actually wrote the article", after reverting, of course. Is this your way to settle the matter, ignoring other's comments but reverting their edits?--Panairjdde 01:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I don't know. But the fact is I have have not "ignored", but have replied to each and every one of your comments, as the record will show. I guess I just didn't respond to your satisfaction. I consider this an minor irritating nuisance over something quite petty, that is beginning to get more than just a little out of hand. I know this article is not my property, and never insinuiated that it was. I am only asking you to please chill out until we can get a third opinion besides yours and mine, preferably from someone who has actually had something to do with the actual article. Thank you again. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I was talking about comments on your talk page. I usually avoid using edit summaries to discuss my position, they are not suited for this purpose. And I got angry for the way you had time to revert but not time to answer. You remembered a bit later to talk, and only after reverting to your version.--Panairjdde 01:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, a look at this editor's contributions has shown that he has now taken it upon himself to go all across wikipedia, making sure that "AD" does not appear in any article. Is this not defeating the spirit of the rules regarding Eras??? AD is customary, traditional and explicitly allowed by the rules, it specifies what calendar is being used, even when it is obvious, that's just the way its always been done. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Mr. ፈቃደ,

I would like you to understand what other people are doing, before attacking them. I have been removing redundant ADs and CEs, as well as uniforming usage in the articles. I think I need to tell you (because you claim to have no time to read my posts or understand my edits, but you have plenty to revert my edits) that this means that I remove AD/CE where not necessary, inserting them where necessary, and making articles that use both AD and CE to use only one of the two formats (apart special articles that use both, of course). This does not mean that I am deleting AD from all the articles. I also noticed in your talk page, that you have several problems with dealing with others' edits about AD/BC/CE/BCE matter, so, before claiming I am going "spirit of the rules regarding Eras", understand what the MoS says, and meditate on it.

Thanks. --Panairjdde 22:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

URGENT

Someone really needs to stop this guy, he is fast deleting every single "AD" from wikipedia in express violation of policy. What will it take to get an admin's attention??? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Linkspam from user 198.187.154.33 and Robbyfoxxxx

User:198.187.154.33 has been adding a commercial link repeatedly to Romani language and other Romani-related articles. It's a link to a discussion forum for a language course based on a single textbook, and looks like it's meant to drive up sales of the textbook. I've warned him three times with the Spam tags, but he persists. CRCulver 01:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Robbyfoxxxx has gotten involved and continues to spam the link. CRCulver 01:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

This would probably be best suited for WP:AIV.--Andeh 03:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Request for restoration of deleted article to user space

Can I get the deleted article Conservative Underground restored to my user space? Thank you in advance. Crockspot 04:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Done - but be careful what you do with it! Brookie :) - a will o' the wisp ! ^(Whisper...) 07:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

We need to scour the Image namespace

At User:ESkog/ImageSurvey, I summarize the results of a 100-image spin through the namespace. I found that roughly 41% of our images are fair use, and of those, about 93% do not meet the requirements that a rationale and source be provided. More administrators need to be checking on image copyrights and trying to keep the namespace clean. If you don't feel comfortable with copyright issues, there are quite a few resources on Wikipedia to explain our policies - get informed and get involved. (ESkog)^(Talk) 06:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

And anybody who is not an admin but feels qualified to make these judgments should feel free to tag the images for deletion or list them here. There's nothing stopping folks from bagging the trash and leaving it outside the janitor's office :-) Just zis Guy you know? 09:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

41% of images as fair use is a lot lot higher than most other estimates, which tend to give the figure as less than 10%. Granted that many free use images are now on commons, so the proportion of fair use (which are kept on English Wikipedia) will automatically rise. Physchim62 (talk) 09:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

41% is reasonably consistent with the check of 1800 recent uploads I did back in March: I found just over 50% of new uploads had a fair-use variant license tag. Even if it was only 10% a year ago, the flood of new image uploads would be enough to raise it to 40% today. --Carnildo 18:03, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Is there a Random article function for images.Geni 18:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Special:Random/Image. Prodego ^talk 18:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

well my servey of 32 images found 46 percent fair use and one unlabled.Geni 18:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Alot of fair use images are being uploaded now and that isn't good in my opinion Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 18:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Seven percent meeting the bare minimum of compliance with policy is higher than I expected, but then I spend most of my time looking at the ones that don't. Our sorting and warning about deletion projects could certainly use more involvement, and don't involve admin actions in any way. Jkelly 18:55, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use isn't the only problem though. I know User:Kiwidough is lieing in him image uploads but since he isn't responding to comments on his talk page there isn't much I can do without going through WP:PUI which is time consumeing.Geni 20:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

With image undeletion, there's no need for PUI to take two weeks for the obvious cases. That still wouldn't change the fact that it takes longer to go through the steps to get an imagevio deleted than it does to upload it. Jkelly 20:06, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

MarkSteere

MarkSteere (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created a vanity article which was userfied but speedily recreated in main space, kicked up a fuss about its deletion and is currently fighting a DRV battle. I have an email acknowledging that Advocron (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and CluePuppet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) are sockpuppets of the same user; it is also inconceivable that Mark_Steere (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is anyone else, and PearlMcPurry (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is probably the same person as well (contribs deleted with the Mark Steere (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article). According to this email, "If I have to choose one of the three names, I'll go with Advocron, since that most accurately describes how I wish to participate - by advocating for people who are ganged up on by deletionists, and whose new articles in my opinion qualify as notable and encyclopedic." In other words, the account was created to make a point, a point which he has started making at [42] and [43]. I came across CluePuppet because of participation in an AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Puget Custom Computers - this article was created by a search engine optimisation company to promote a client; I thought it was a sock of the SEO spammer but Steere says otherwise. What, if anything, should we do about this user? Just zis Guy you know? 13:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Indefinitely block all the sockpuppets and leave the main account active. While having sockpuppet accounts is fine, using multiple sockpuppets for the purpose of having additional commentary is not. He's been using these multiple sockpuppets to participate in AfDs & DRVs, and he's also been launching personal attacks against the "evil deletionist cabal". Definitely not good faith. Note: only for accounts that are either self-admitted or confirmed (by CheckUser or whatever). --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• Mark is disputing some of the sockpuppet accusations (on the Unblock mailing list). I haven't confirmed it with him, but it appears as if he is admitting to User:CluePuppet and User:Advocron (User:MarkSteere and User:Mark Steere would be assumed). He claims not to know about any other accounts. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: As a show of good faith, I've deleted the user pages of User:CluePuppet, User:MarkSteere, and User:Mark Steere. I don't know if Mark actually wanted the accounts deleted, but I've explained that it's not possible, and I think he'll be satisfied with having the user pages deleted. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests

Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests has had a backlog for over 24 hours now. --ais523 12:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Request on my talk page

I had a request on my talk page to take a look at Category:Adelaide_Football_Club. User:Seth Cohen has created an individual page for the team roster of every season (Adelaide Crows 1991 Playing List, Adelaide Crows 1992 Playing List, and so on). Now, my question is, can these be speedied (for having no real content)? Or do they need to go through AFD? I'm inclined to apply common sense and speedy them, but last time I did that, I got no end of grief. Will have a word with the creator either way. Proto///type 12:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say, send them through AfD as a group nomination. They do have content... I don't think the community will want that content though. Mangojuice^talk 12:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't you just redirect them back to the main article? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 12:55, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That's what I'd do - they can be split out again if there is anything notable about an individual player list. Just zis Guy you know? 13:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD history problems

Hi folks, things aren't working the way I thought they would. It seems that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brooklyn Beckham is a nomination closed on 20 March 2006. When this article was renominated, the nominator didn't create a new AfD, rather, he cleared out the old page and replaced it with a new AfD. I tried to split the two versions by deleting the page and restoring all the edits from 20 March 2006 and back. I then moved this page to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brooklyn Beckham (old nomination), and restored the latest history to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brooklyn Beckham. However, things didn't work the way I thought they would, and after multiple attempts to delete, move, and merging histories, I am now left with the old 20 March 2006 AfD, and while the AfD says that there are deleted edits in the article history, when I try to restore the edits, it says that there are no edits in the history! Can a more MediaWiki-savvy admin take a look at this and fix it, then tell me what I should have done? Thanks, --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Clear your browser cache. I'll try to split it. Prodego ^talk 16:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Ah, okay, thanks. I saw things were okay, then restored to my last "closed" version, but I'll leave the splitting to you. Please let me know how you did that so I can repeat the steps when I have to do it again in the future. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

All done. Just clear your cache before checking the history, and you should be fine. Prodego ^talk 16:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks. It's that damn browser cache. :-P --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

please investigate administrator KillerChihuahua

Concurrent discussion ongoing at AN/I [44]...so moving all this there.--MONGO 16:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That discussion was started by a disgruntled user who was upset that KillerChihuahua was rightfully blocking his sock puppets. Batman2005 18:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Third opinion please

As entertaining as this one-sided discussion is, I think it needs an external eye. I have also received an Email from ghirlandajo regarding is "eff off" edit summary, how necessary he is to the project and similar matters, which I will disclose if requested. Ghirlandajo has been warned before (notably in an ArbCom case) about his confrontational editing, uncivility and personal attacks. Circeus 18:25, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily have issued a block of any length for this, but he is being overly aggressive and confrontational. It's clear that you are not in a content dispute (in particular, you did not reinstitute your edit after blocking him), but it would have been better if someone other than the person the "eff off" comment were directed at had conducted the action, since it could be seen as an impassioned response to an insult. Deco 19:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't care much for the "eff off" (although his severe issues with WP:OWN are something else). It's really the "troll" comment for leaving a {{civil2}} on his talk that triggered it. Circeus 19:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's quite necessary to impress upon Ghirlandajo the fact that nobody—no matter how many articles they've started—is exempt from the requirement to stay civil. It will be regrettable if the only way to do this is through blocks—it would certainly be much easier for everyone involved if he were to change his behavior of his own volition—but, if nothing else works, I suppose there's not much else to be said. Kirill Lokshin 19:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, the regretable and totally inappropriate "Fuck off" comment was from months earlier. Please do not use it to justify anything here. Second, eyes at the talk page provided by Circeus are invited indeed. I think admins should avoid borderline actions in cases where they are involved, especially since user:Circeus admits here that he "mostly hasn't been doing much user-related stuff since becoming an admin and that he needs guidance, so he wants to get some guidances". Blocking is the most serious punishment available and one has to be absolutely sure when using it, especially due to an issue where the user involves himself. I regret that Circeus lost temper. I suggest he removes his block himself and if he after WP:TEA thinks the block still may be warranted, refers it to other admin's attention at WP:ANI. --Irpen 19:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The Fuck off (or more exactly "eff off", occured today [45]. Within twenty minutes, having done a single revert, I was called a "revert warrior" (see previous diff) and a troll. Ghirlandajo, with all his edits and experience, and having been warned by the ArbCom, should have, of all people, been aware that such comportments are not accepted on Wikipedia. Circeus 19:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I then agree the remark was inappropriate. The rest of my message stays then, see above. Your referring the case to experienced and uninvolved admins at WP:ANI would have been the proper thing to do. I think you are taking this personally. You have the full right to do so, but not to use Admin tools while at it. Is there any reason not to have others decide on the issue? Please think of it calmly. Whether you self-revert your block or not, I think this is truly a borderline case and you should have posted it to WP:ANI for others to act on it. I do not accuse you in acting unethically. I think you simply lost the temper, also judging for your entries at talk, but that's just my opinion. --Irpen 20:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Seems pretty trivial to me (especially considering that Ghirlandajo is not a native speaker of English). Anyway, at least we now know that we ought not disagree with admins, or else... --Tēlex 20:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Telex, c'mon. Jkelly 20:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

My point is, JK, that even if it was done with the best of motives, it seems more like a revenge block than anything else. As there was interaction (i.e. conflict) in an article editing capacity, I think C was perhaps too involved to be issuing unilateral blocks. IMO he shouldn't have blocked, but asked someone else to review the situation (you maybe). --Tēlex 20:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Telex, if memory serves, Ghirlandajo has insulted me in the past, so I suggest that your example helps demonstrate the point I was trying to make below. Jkelly 20:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Circeus, since you were an involved party, you should take the affair straight here, and not blocking him yourself. My $.02 -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

So the way to make sure one never gets blocked for incivility is to just insult every admin who warns you? That's a brilliant system. Jkelly 20:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't get your sarcasm... They were involved in an edit war over Spanish Baroque article prior to that comment. I'm fairly new to Wikipedia, but if memory serves, you can't be a judge and a party if you're an admin... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It's very borderline whether there was an edit war; certainly the cause of the block is only tangentially related to the Spanish Baroque article itself. While it would have probably been a cleaner solution for Circeus to bring up the issue here rather than enacting a block personally, the block itself seems quite justified, so it's a fairly minor point. Kirill Lokshin 20:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I see your point Kirill. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we brush the motives aside. Circeus was right to refer the case to this board. More correctly, he should have gone to WP:ANI and let others, with experience and uninvolvement, to sort it out rather than using the strongest possible tool in his disposal. There is no foul play here. We all loose temper at times. We should simply realize when this is happening and have some [{WP:TEA]] to cool down instead of pressing buttons. --Irpen 20:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• As it is, Ghirlandajo's block should have expired by now. Circeus 20:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Too bad then. Self-reversion by the blocker would have been a useful gesture, even if a symbolic one. --Irpen 20:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

If someone would be so kind as to look at this. I'd prefer avoid any additional interaction with this user. Circeus 20:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll try and talk to him... (Incidentally, I already did several days ago because of another incident) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyright question

This edit [46] shows the insertion of a block of text lifted verbatim from the Catholic Encyclopaedia. Leaving aside the fact that copy & paste of big lumps of text is almost always a sign you are doing something wrong, and the fact that it's part of a POV pushing campaign by Vaquero100 (talk · contribs), I'd like to know form the copyright spotters here what would be the copyright status of lifting large, uncredited blocks of text from the Catholic Encyclopaedia. I've restored the redirect for now. Just zis Guy you know? 21:23, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Our article on the Catholic Encyclopedia suggests that it's public domain, so this seems okay from a legal standpoint. The issues of properly crediting the source (e.g. {{1911}}) and of the suitability of such an old text for inclusion are, of course, quite separate. Kirill Lokshin 21:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

New England vandalism

The page was recently semi-protected, then unprotected. It needs semi-protection again. --AaronS 22:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Major sockpuppeting problems on anarchism

There are some major sockpuppet problems with anarchism, leading to edit warring when even some of the most divergent interests were compromising and proceeding in a NPOV manner. The page has been semi-protected, but banned user Hogeye has worked around semiprotection by creating new accounts, waiting a few days, and then delving into the fray that he created. It's highly disruptive, and this article was finally starting to see some good progress. I don't have the time to go through the administrative channels, but I would appreciate it if anybody who does have the time, and is interested, would take a look at the issue and try to resolve it in a judicious manner. --AaronS 22:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I second this post, Hogeye continues to use both open proxies and throwaway accounts to edit on this and other anarchism related articles, and it is getting incredibly annoying. The Ungovernable Force 22:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)